National Hall of Fame set to welcome Miroballi
INDIANAPOLIS - Dana Miroballi, record-setting Wheeling High School cross country and track and field star, is among 12 individuals who will be inducted by the National Federation of State High School Associations into the National High School Hall of Fame on Wednesday at the Chicago Marriott Downtown in Chicago.
The Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be the closing event of the 90th NFHS annual summer meeting. Miroballi, who attended Wheeling High School in the 1980s and earned Daily Herald Athlete of the Year honors, won the Illinois High School Association state cross country championship four consecutive years. She is one of about 45 individuals in the history of high school cross country competition to accomplish that feat, according to the National High School Sports Record Book published by the NFHS.
In her fourth straight title as a senior, Miroballi set the state course record with a time of 11:16 for the 2.1-mile course at Detweiller Park in Peoria. Her individual performances helped her team to state titles in 1984 and 1986 and a seventh-place finish in 1985.
Miroballi's state title as a senior was actually her fifth-straight championship as she won the Illinois Elementary School Association cross country title as an eighth-grader at Prospect Heights MacArthur Junior High School. No other runner in Illinois history has won the state cross country championship five consecutive years from eighth through 12th grades.
On the track, Miroballi won four consecutive 3,200-meter run titles, her best time coming as a freshman with a 10:24.5 clocking, winning by just 0.5 seconds. After finishing fourth and second in the 1,600-meter run in her first two years of high school, Miroballi won the event as a junior and senior, when she recorded her best time of 4:54.17. Five years earlier, Miroballi won her first 1,600-meter state title as an eighth-grader at the IESA state meet. Her winning time as an eighth-grader was 5:14.99.
Overall, Miroballi won 10 state championships as a high school student and two while in junior high school. Several of her records set more than 20 years ago still stand, including the 3,200-meter run (10:24.5 as a freshman), 1,600-meter run (4:54.17), indoor 3,200-meter run (11:17.0) and indoor mile run (5:08).
She was inducted into Wheeling High School's inaugural Athletic Hall of Fame class in 2007.
Miroballi competed in track and cross country at Indiana University and helped the Hoosiers to the 1989 Big Ten Conference cross country title and the 1991 Big Ten indoor track title.
This year's class increases the number in the National High School Hall of Fame to 362, with 12 individuals chosen. Other inductees in the 2009 class: Billy Bye, early 1940s versatile athlete who earned 21 letters in six sports at Thief River Falls (Minnesota) and Anoka (Minnesota) high schools; David Clyde, dominating pitcher at Houston (Texas) Westchester High School in the early 1970s; Guy Anderson, 40-year active baseball coach at Cordova High School in Rancho Cordova, Calif. ; Dick Dullaghan, high school football coach in Indianapolis and nine-time State Coach of the Year; Bob Hurley, 25-time state champion high school basketball coach at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, N.J.; Harry Breland, coach at Oak Grove High School in Hattiesburg, Miss. ; Catherine Lempesis, girls cross country and track and field coach in South Carolina; George Ford, founder of the Connecticut Swimming and Diving Officials Association; Clair Muscaro, former commissioner of the Ohio High School Athletic Association; Ruth Rehn of the South Dakota High School Athletic Association; Himie Voxman, one of the nation's founders of modern instrumental music education.