The San Mateo Elks Lodge served as the setting of Aragon’s eighth annual Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony on Jan. 31. Friends and family of the six inductees, including the players of the 1980 varsity baseball team, all gathered together to celebrate the accomplishments of the select Aragon student-athlete alumni.
“It’s not a set formula,” explains 2010 Hall of Fame inductee and Athletic Director Steve Sell. “The number one criteria is what they achieved at Aragon and then what they achieved outside of Aragon. It’s truly people who made an impact at Aragon or in athletics after they left. As a person who has to write and read the plaques, it has to be somebody who makes me say, ‘Wow, that’s something else.’”
Discussions over this year’s inductees began in the summer, according to Sell, and is considered by a committee comprised of alumni belonging to each decade. The committee compiles a list of nominees before narrowing down the names based on their accomplishments, honors and historical significance to the program — as in the case of basketball players Cynthia Moore and Diean Manu Halaufia from the class of 1982.
Prior to Moore and Manu’s sophomore season, the team had never made a Central Coast Section appearance. As for the tactical revolution that the two led, Moore and Manu’s team introduced the fast-paced, baseline-to-baseline identity that Aragon is still renowned for today. “The year before, the girls team had played zone basketball.
They weren’t allowed to run out of their zone,” says then-head coach Ron Boland. “And the year that I coached [Moore and Manu], I put in the full-court game, so they could run up and down the court. That year, we were getting the girls to do the same lightweight drills as the boys and just getting them conditioned to run up and down the court in this new style and pace of the game. It was just a complete change.”
In regards to, Moore, her recognition as Aragon’s Athlete of the Year in 1982, three-time all-league, and two-time all-county did not stop there. As her plaque reads, “[Moore] led her team to a co-championship as a sophomore and to a league championship her junior and senior season,” an achievement she shares with Manu.
Meanwhile, Manu’s relationship with Aragon extends to the present day, where she has been able to employ the skills and stratagem that she learned as a basketball and volleyball player when she introduced boys volleyball to the school in the spring of 2014. “When [Sell] called me, I was mopping the gym at Aragon getting ready for my boys to play volleyball,” says Manu. “And my response was, ‘Are you sure?’”
A graduate of 1972, Tim Sunderland first arrived at Aragon in his sophomore year after transferring from an all-boys school in Honolulu, Hawaii. After his high school career as the number one singles player and two all-league acknowledgements in tennis, Sunderland played at the College of San Mateo and the University of Santa Barbara. In his post-collegiate playing career, he was a nationally ranked player in doubles and would eventually become a coach to one of Northern California’s most decorated clubs at Los Gatos Courtside.
Later, a familiar face on Aragon’s campus, Guy Oling, was presented his plaque, which recognized him for all his post-high school accomplishments as a player and a coach. Before arriving at Aragon in 1985 as the school’s soccer and swimming coach, Oling played soccer for four years at Humboldt State, and briefly professionally.
Since then, Oling has served as a coach to an assortment of podium finishes — namely a combined eight league championships for his boys and girls golf teams. Last season, Oling was named CCS Honor Coach as well as Northern California Boys Golf Coach of the Year.
Not in attendance due to a family emergency was Daren Hooper of the class of 1995. As his plaque states, “His senior football season, [Hooper] was also selected as the San Mateo County Times Player of the Year as well as the San Francisco Examiner Player of the Year. He was selected All-League, All-County, All-CCS, and All-State.”
Finally, the 1980 varsity baseball team was recognized as one of the most talented and dominant team in school history, according to Sell. In addition to finishing the season with a 10-1 record in the Mid-Peninsula League and winning the post-season title, the team also finished with a 20-4 overall record until succumbing to the eventual CCS champions in the second round of the playoffs.
“We had a tremendous group of athletes. Most of us could pitch, play shortstop, catch, play outfield. All our players had played all the other positions before. There was no designated position so we did move around quite a bit,” said class of 1981 graduate Don Hendricks.
Overall, gratification, humbleness, and pride reverberated from the six inductees and their guests alike. After all, as Lou Murgo, the 1980 varsity baseball head coach, had just said during his acceptance speech, “When the story of your induction goes out to be printed, the words ‘Aragon Athletic Hall of Fame’ will be capitalized. That signifies the importance of those words over the others. It sets them apart. Just as your selection sets you apart.”
