Harrier Hall of Fame 2012

Billy Back played for both our basketball and baseball teams here at Miami Hamilton. During his time at Miami University Hamilton, he was chosen for the 1st team All-ORCC team in 3 out of his 4 years. He had a cumulative batting average of .363 with 230 hits over his four seasons playing with the Harriers. He was also skilled at stealing bases, succeeding 87 times out of his 97 attempts.

His contribution as a team player was even more impressive. The baseball team from 2000-2004 dominated the ORCC winning the regular season and the State tournament all four years. For many on that team, one of the greatest highlights had to have been the game they played on May 9, 2001. It was against a certain Miami Red Hawks team in Oxford. Billy’s coach Darryl Grissom got a call from Oxford asking if the Harriers could play the RedHawks. Darryl accepted and the Harriers ended up beating the RedHawks by a score of 9-1. Keep in mind this was not a bad recruiting year for the RedHawks; five players on the RedHawks team went on to be drafted (including that game’s pitcher, Chad Reineke, by the Cincinnati Reds).

As Coach Grissom says this game was the "cornerstone of the Miami Hamilton program and put us on the map." Billy was a big part of this victory over the RedHawks as he led the Harrier offensive charge going 3 for 4, with 2 runs and a double. Three days later, the Harriers won their 2nd consecutive ORCC title.

Ed Montgomery was the Men’s Tennis Coach for 12 years. During that time the tennis team won all 12 ORCC championships—not a bad record.

Ed has also been involved in tennis around the area. He served 8 years on the Hamilton Tennis Association, including 2 years as its President, and was on the  Board of Directors. He is also quite a tennis player himself.  He has won the Fairfield City Open Doubles Championship and the New London Hills 4.5 Tournament. We also are not the first to recognize his contributions to the sport. In 1990, he was given the Leeds Bronson Award for outstanding contributions to tennis.

His contributions to Miami University do not stop there, for Ed has been much more than a tennis coach. He has long been an active member of the School of Fine Arts and a Hamilton Campus faculty member. Ed retired from Miami University in 2012.

Brad Reckart played for Miami Hamilton Basketball from 1996–2000. Even with our early record books not being the most accurate, everyone believes he is the all-time leading Men’s Basketball scorer in Hamilton Campus history. There was no official tracking of this, but there was even talk that he scored more points than anyone in the history of the ORCC during his tenure here. What we do know for sure is that Brad was a 3-time ORCC player (1997–2000) of the year and was first all-ORCC team all 4 years.

As his coach Kevin Lakes, says, “Brad was not only a very talented player but he was intelligent and very competitive. Brad completely ran the team on the court and was a great influence off the court as well. He was the heart and soul of our team for the three years I was the coach.” During Coach Lakes’s tenure Brad lead the team to 3 consecutive ORCC league championships and 2 state titles.

Brad was the state tournament’s Most Valuable Player two years in a row. In 1999 he received the honors for his 29 points in the Championship game and in 2000 he bested his own record to earn the honors with 34 points in the Championship game. The team had an overall record of 96-29 the years that he played and he had 2,759 career points, with 531 of those coming from 3-pointers.