Former Soddy-Daisy and Kentucky softball star Kelsey Nunley is the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame's choice for area female athlete of the year in 2016.The Southeastern Conference softball pitcher of the year and an Olympic swimmer are the area athletes of the year who will be recognized Feb. 27 at the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame induction banquet, and another special award recipient was a fourth-place finisher in the Paralympic Games at Rio de Janeiro.
Former Soddy-Daisy High School and University of Kentucky softball star Kelsey Nunley, former McCallie and Michigan swimmer Sean Ryan, visually impaired triathlete Elizabeth Baker of Signal Mountain, golfer Maggie Scott from Charleston and fellow educator and longtime coach Bobby Scott from Cleveland will join 20 new inductees in being honored at the 6:30 p.m. dinner that Monday at the Chattanooga Convention Center.
The new hall members were announced two weeks ago. Tickets cost $40 and are available through Catherine Neely at 423-842-7274.
Baker is receiving the Morgan-Morris Award for exceptional achievement despite significant adversity, while the two Scotts, not related, from Bradley County are being honored with the Betty Probasco and Walt Lauter awards for outstanding lifetime achievement and service.
"This year's honorees are an exceptional group," Hall of Fame president Mickey Haddock said, "and we are proud not only to have them representing our area's sports community but to show them appreciation and gratitude for their achievements and contributions."
Now a mechanical engineer with Detroit Diesel, Ryan finished 14th as one of two United States representatives in the men's 10-kilometer open-water Olympic swimming event at Rio, where much of the attention before the Summer Games was on the foul conditions of the water. He took precautions but said that turned out to be largely overblown - but the competition was not.
"It's the toughest field in the world and I just feel like it's an honor to be in it," he was quoted by USA Today after the race. "It's an honor to say I'm a U.S. Olympian. It sort of chokes me up a little bit."
He had fallen short in the open-water and pool U.S. trials in 2012, but he qualified at the end of that summer for the 2013 World University Games in Russia and won the 1500-meter freestyle there.
"And to be able to come back in four years and do what he did, that showed a lot of heart on his part. It's a tough thing to make that (U.S.) team," McCallie coach Stan Corcoran said. "Sean had a real good high school career and a real good college career, and he's a great person."
Nunley was a three-sport star at Soddy-Daisy, where she was an All-American, the state Gatorate player of the year, a three-time all-state player and two-time state champion in softball and the first recipient of the SDHS Legacy Award for athletic and academic accomplishments. She continued to excel at Kentucky, beginning as a freshman and including a spot on the Women's College World Series as a sophomore.
In 2016 she finished her college career with a 92-44 record and 809 strikeouts in 943 1/3 innings, as she went 21-6 with a program-best 1.27 earned run average. She was a Senior CLASS Award finalist as well as the SEC's top pitcher and the Wildcats' first NFCA first-team All-American, and she was picked fifth overall by the USSSA Pride in the National Pro Fastpitch college draft and went 6-1 as a rookie All-Star. She has a 3.6 grade point average and will graduate in May with two degrees.
Baker was diagnosed at age 15 with Stargardt's disease, a juvenile version of macular generation, and her eyesight took a severe decline four years later while she was at the University of Georgia. She had always been a competitor, though, and kept finding ways to do that. Moving to Chattanooga in 2001 after physical therapy school, she got into triathlons in 2004, ran her first marathon in 2007 and completed the Chattanooga Ironman in 2014.
In 1995 she finished second in her category in the USA Paratriathlon nationals and in her first International Triathlon Union world event and then first in the Open Paratriathlon worlds in Chicago, and last year she won CAMRI national and ITU Penrith world races before going to Rio as part of the first U.S. paratriathlon team and finishing fourth at the age of 42.
As a golfer, Maggie Scott is a 32-time Cleveland City ladies' champion, a nine-time Women's State Senior Amateur champion, a 13-time Tennessee women's senior player of the year, the 1994 Women's State Amateur winner, the 2016 Women's State Open senior division champion and Women's State Four-Ball champion (with Linda Mullins), and she has been part of three USGA Women's State team championships, a six-time USGA Women's Senior Amateur qualifier and a two-time Ruth Eller Cup team captain. She was inducted last year into the Tennessee Golf Hall of Fame.
But she also taught school for 31 years and has spent a lot of time in retirement helping with junior golf programs.
Bobby Scott was a three-year football letterman at both Bradley County High School and Tennessee, where he played for legendary coach Gen. Robert Neyland, and he coached football in Florida and Tennessee for 20 years with a career record of 131-37-3. The last 13 years were at Cleveland High, where his 1968 team was a state champion and ranked 19th in the nation. He was the winning coach in the TSSAA East-West all-star game in 1969.
Coach Scott spent time in the National Guard and has been in the furniture business for the past 40 years.