HOF History
By Al Myers
Being nominated and inducted into the USAWA Hall of Fame is the highest honor one can receive in the USAWA. The HOF program has been in place almost since the beginning of the USAWA, and has several inductees. The list of these HOF members is always available on the website, under the top page header “History”.
This week in the USAWA Discussion Forum (and if you’re not following the discussion forum, you should, as this is where active daily discussion is occurring involving the organization) there was a post started by Eric Todd asking why the HOF application did not include some of the Championship Events in the USAWA receiving points. First of all, I was really impressed that ET had noticed this. He’s obviously been studying the website. I’m glad he pointed this out as it’s something that needed attended to, and something that I have been overlooking.
The Hall of Fame Program was started by Chris Waterman. Chris is a fellow Hall of Famer in the USAWA (and just made his COMEBACK to the USAWA at Nationals), and deserves the credit for setting up the original parameters (of earning points) to be inducted into the HOF. This started in 1997. He was the chairman of the committee that included Frank Ciavattone, Denny Habecker, and John Vernacchio. At that time Chris oversaw the program and kept track of everyone’s points, and once you broke the 1000 point mark you would be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Before that the HOF members were nominated and voted on at the National Meeting. In 2010 the HOF program was placed under the direction of the newly formed position of the USAWA Awards Director, in which I have been the director since then. At that time the USAWA made a few minor changes in how points could be earned, but pretty much followed the exact outline that Chris and the committee developed originally. As time goes on things change in the organization and those changes need to be reflected in the application.
However, after developing the new HOF application in 2010 and getting it approved by the membership it has not been amended SINCE that time. And things have continued to change! One of those changes has been the development of the many great Championship Events in the USAWA that we have now. Many of these Championship Events were not included in the HOF application, and obviously I agree with Eric that they should be. I made this change and with unanimous vote by the Executive Board the HOF application now includes these new events. During the EB’s discussion on this it was also pointed out that being a certified USAWA official should be included. So that was added as well!
The new updated Hall of Fame Application is now available under the main header “About Us” and the page “Forms and Applications”.