Bobby Ray Franklin is a former American football safety for the Cleveland Browns. He played as a quarterback for Ole Miss in college, and he was the head football coach at Northwest Mississippi Community College.

After retiring, he coached the defensive backs and special teams for the Dallas Cowboys from 1968 – 1972.

On June 25, 2010 Franklin was inducted to the Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame.

Ralph Harry Friedgen played football at University of Maryland as a multitude of positions under many different coaches. Upon graduation he returned to his alma mater to be a graduate assistant before later accepting positions on the staffs of The Citadel, William and Mary and Murray State.

In 1982, Friedgen returned to the University of Maryland as offensive coordinator under head coach Bobby Ross, who was his mentor during his tenure at The Citadel. Friedgen then followed Ross first to Georgia Tech for four years, and then again to the San Diego Chargers. In 1999, he was the winner and awarded the Frank Broyles Award, given to the nation’s top assistant coach.

In November 2000, Ralph Friedgen was named the Head Coach of the University of Maryland football team. He was charged with rebuilding a struggling program that had only one winning season and no bowl game appearances since 1990. Fredgen spent 10 years at Maryland with a reputation of having one of the top offensive minds in college football. He won the ACC Coach of the Year award in 2001 and 2010.

Friedgen was most recently the special assistant coach for Rutgers after serving as the offensive coordinator during the 2014 season.

Gary Gait and his twin brother Paul, led the Orange to three NCAA championships with Gary picking up 1988 NCAA player of the year. On to pro and the success only continued: three Mann Cups (two with the WLA’s Victoria Shamrocks), three Major League Lacrosse titles, three MILL/National Lacrosse League titles, the 2004 Heritage Cup, and the 2006 World Lacrosse Championship representing Canada. Individually, Gait won the NLL MVP award a record six times, the MILL championship game MVP twice, and 2005 MLL MVP. He retired as the NLL’s all-time leader in goals (634), assists (526), and points (1160) and remains amongst the all-time leaders despite being passed by a handful of longer-serving players. He added sixty-six goals in twenty-two career playoff games.

Perhaps the Gait brothers’ greatest contribution however is the way they revolutionized the way the modern game is played and helped usher in the current professional game’s popularity across North America. Only the second player in NLL history to have his jersey number retired, Gary Gait has been inducted into the US Lacrosse National Hall of Fame and was a charter inductee into the NLL Hall of Fame.

Four-time All-American for the Syracuse Orange men’s lacrosse team from 1987-90 (including first-team honors from 1988 to 1990), and was on three NCAA championship-winning teams. He twice won the Lt. Raymond Enners Award, given to the most outstanding college lacrosse player, in 1988 and 1990. Gait holds the Syracuse career goals record at 192 and the single-season goals record at 70, an NCAA record until 2008. In 1997, the NCAA Lacrosse Committee named Gait, along with his twin brother and Syracuse teammate, Paul, to the 25th Anniversary Lacrosse team.

He played in the NLL for 17 years, winning Rookie of the Year in 1991, earning league MVP honors for five straight years, from 1995 to ’99 and winning All-Pro honors each season. Gait led the league in points and goals seven times, won three league championships and finished his indoor career with 1,091 points, a league record at the time. Gait also played five seasons in MLL from 2001 to 2005, winning the league title three times and co-MVP honors in 2005.

He helped Canada win the 2006 World Lacrosse Championship, the country’s first world championship since 1978, by scoring four goals in the final against the United States.

Paul Gait is widely regarded as one of the best lacrosse players of all time and is the current Vice President of the Rochester Knighthawks of the National Lacrosse League. Gait, along with his twin brother Gary Gait, had outstanding playing careers at Syracuse University, in the National Lacrosse League, Major League Lacrosse, the Western Lacrosse Association and at the international level for Canada.

Laddie Gale led the Oregon Ducks in scoring in 1938 and 1939, earning All-Pacific Coast Conference honors in each season. In 1939, Gale led the Ducks to a national championship in the first-ever Division I men’s basketball tournament. After graduation, Gale played professionally in 1939 and 1940 for the Detroit Eagles of the National Basketball League. He left the Eagles in to serve in World War II,reportedly after being the first Oregon draftee selected by lottery. After the war, he played on several semi-pro teams and retired from basketball in 1949.

Robert “Bob” M. Gantt Jr. was a professional basketball player for the Washington Capitols in the National Basketball Association. He played one season with the Capitols (the 1946-47 season). Gantt studied at the Duke University and is a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

Charles Rutland “Chuck” Gardner is a retired professional basketball power forward who played one season in the American Basketball Association as a member of the Denver Rockets during the 1967-68 season. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, he attended the University of Colorado where he was drafted in the ninth round of the 1966 NBA draft by the Baltimore Bullets.

Phi Delta Theta Sports Hall of Fame Inductee

Hall of Fame baseball player Lou Gehrig was born in New York City in 1903. A standout football and baseball player, Gehrig signed his first contract with the New York Yankees in April 1923. Over the next 15 years he led the team to six World Series titles and set the mark for most consecutive games played. He retired in 1939 after getting diagnosed with ALS. Gehrig passed away from the disease in 1941.

Henry Louis Gehrig was born in the Yorkville section of Manhattan in New York City, on June 19, 1903. His parents, Heinrich and Christina Gehrig, were German immigrants who’d moved to their new country just a few years before their son’s birth.

The only one of the four Gehrig children to survive infancy, Lou faced a childhood that was shaped by poverty. His father struggled to stay sober and keep a job, while his mother, a strong woman who was intent on creating a better life for her son, worked constantly, cleaning houses and cooking meals for wealthy New Yorkers.

A devoted parent, Christina pushed hard for her son to get a good education and got behind her son’s athletic pursuits, which were many. From an early age, Gehrig showed himself to be a gifted athlete, excelling in both football and baseball.

After graduating from high school, Gehrig enrolled at Columbia University, where he studied engineering and played fullback on the football team. In addition, he made the school’s baseball team, pitching solidly for the club and earning the nickname Columbia Lou from adoring fans. In one famous game, the young hurler struck out 17 batters.

But it was Gehrig’s bat that appealed to the New York Yankees, who in April 1923, the same year Yankee Stadium first opened, signed Gehrig to his first professional contract. The deal included a $1,500 signing bonus, a fantastic sum for Gehrig and his family, which allowed him to move his parents to the suburbs and, more important, play baseball full-time.

Just two months after signing the contract, in June 1923, Gehrig debuted as a Yankee. By the following season, Gehrig was inserted into the lineup to replace the team’s aging first baseman, Wally Pipp. The change proved to be no small matter. It set in motion a streak in which Gehrig established a Major League Baseball record by playing in 2,130 consecutive games. Gehrig’s famous record was finally broken in 1995, when Baltimore Oriole shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. eclipsed the mark.

Beyond his consistent presence, however, Gehrig also became an offensive force in an already potent lineup. He and his teammate Babe Ruth formed an unmatched power-hitting tandem.

Quiet and unassuming, Gehrig struggled to make friends with many of his colorful and spotlight-hungry Yankee teammates, especially Ruth. But his hardworking nature and ability to play through incredible pain certainly earned their respect, and earned him the nickname “The Iron Horse.” Yankee fans, meanwhile, were thankful just to have him in the lineup.

His Hall of Fame career saw him score 100 runs and knock in at least that many in 13 consecutive seasons. In 1931, he set an American League record by clubbing 184 RBIs; three years later, he took home baseball’s coveted Triple Crown by leading the league in home runs (49), average (.363) and RBIs (165). That same year he became the first player to hit four home runs in a single game.

In the World Series, Gehrig was equally impressive, batting .361 over the course of his career, while leading the club to six championships.

In 1938 the aging Gehrig turned in his first subpar season. His hard-charging career seemed to have caught up with him as his body started to fail him. But Gehrig, who was having trouble with things as simple as tying his shoelaces, feared he might be facing something more than just the downslide of a long baseball career.

In 1939, after getting off to a horrid start to the baseball season, Gehrig checked himself into the Mayo Clinic, where after a series of tests, doctors informed him that he was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a devastating disease that strips nerve cells of their ability to interact with the body’s muscles. His diagnosis with the disease helped put the spotlight on the condition, and in the years since Gehrig’s passing, it has come to be known popularly as “Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

On May 2, 1939, Gehrig’s ironman streak came to an end when he voluntarily took himself out of the lineup. Not long after, Gehrig retired from baseball. He returned to Yankee Stadium on July 4 of that year so that the team could hold a day in his honor. Standing on the field where he’d made so many memories and wearing his old uniform, Gehrig said goodbye to his fans with a short, tearful speech to the crowded ballpark.

“For the past two weeks you’ve been reading about a bad break,” he said. “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” He paid tribute to his parents, wife and teammates, and then closed by saying: “I might have been given a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for. Thank you.”

Following Gehrig’s retirement, Major League Baseball circumvented its own rules and immediately inducted the former Yankee into its Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. In addition, the Yankees retired Gehrig’s uniform, making him the first baseball player ever to receive that honor.

Over the next year, Gehrig maintained a busy schedule, accepting a civic role with the City of New York in which the former ballplayer determined the time of release for prisoners in the city’s penal institutions.

By 1941, however, Gehrig’s health had significantly deteriorated. He largely remained at home, too frail to even sign his own name, much less go out. On June 2, 1941, he passed away in his sleep at his home in New York City.

John Edward “Jack” Gélineau was a professional ice hockey goaltender, principally for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League.

Ronald Charles Cey is an American former third baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers (1971-1982), Chicago Cubs (1983-1986) and Oakland Athletics (1987). Cey batted and threw right-handed. A popular player, he was nicknamed “The Penguin” for his slow waddling running gait by his then-minor league manager Tommy Lasorda.

Cey was born in Tacoma, Washington. A graduate of Mount Tahoma High School, he attended Washington State University. He also played college baseball for the Cougars in 1968.

With the Dodgers, third baseman Cey was part of an All-Star infield that included Steve Garvey (first baseman), Davey Lopes (second baseman) and Bill Russell (shortstop). This quartet was the most enduring infield in baseball history. The four infielders stayed together as the Dodgers’ starters for eight and a half years. Cey was one of the most productive and adept-fielding National League third basemen in the 1970s, but was overshadowed by Pete Rose and Mike Schmidt. In 1977, he helped the Dodgers to a fast start by batting .429 in April with a record-tying 11 home runs for the month and 29 RBI’s. The Dodgers won the Western Division title that season on their way to the National League pennant.

Cey would continue to have productive seasons with the Dodgers, helping them to pennants in 1978 and 1981. After the 1982 season, the Dodgers traded Cey to the Chicago Cubs for two minor leaguers so that Pedro Guerrero could move to third base and rookie Mike Marshall could get in the Dodgers’ outfield. Cey provided veteran leadership for the Cubs over four seasons and, in 1984, helped lead the Cubs to the National League East Division title, hitting 25 homers and driving in 97 runs, both team highs. Cey spent the final year of his career in 1987 as a part-time player with the Oakland A’s.

In a 17-season career, Cey was a .261 hitter with 316 home runs and 1139 RBI in 2073 games. He is also one of three Phis to win the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award.

Cey had a terrific 1981 World Series in which he helped spark the Dodgers to four straight victories after they had lost the first two games, including returning for the clinching Game 6 after having been being hit in the head by a Goose Gossage fastball during Game 5. Cey was named co-MVP along with Steve Yeager and Pedro Guerrero. He is still a part of the Dodgers’ organization and continues to make appearances on the team’s behalf.