JIM DAILEY -
Dailey’s performance in the state tournament in 1955 caught the eye of the n St. Louis University coach Eddie Hickey. Hickey followed Dailey’s career the next season and offered the Joplin playmaker a scholarship after the 1956 season.
Freshmen were not eligible for varsity competition at that time, but Dailey broke into the starting lineup as a sophomore and was team captain and starting point guard of the Billikens as a junior and senior. SLU won 55 games and lost only 23 during Dailey’s three years of varsity ball.
MICKEY HEATHERLY -
After a three year stint at Carthage High, Mickey moved to Anderson, Mo., and started a football program at what is now McDonald County High School. He was head coach of the Mustangs from 1962 through 1966.
Mickey then moved to Baxter Springs for a six-year tour of duty as head football coach of the Lions. He then spent one year coaching at Riverton before joining the Joplin Parkwood staff of Dewey Combs in 1972.
He took over the head coaching duties at Joplin Memorial High School in 1993 and 1994 before the Joplin schools consolidated. He then assisted Combs for one year at Joplin High School before taking over the leadership of the Joplin program in 1996.
PORTER WITTICH -
Porter Wittich was destined to be a writer. His father, Lucius, was a sports writer for the Joplin Globe in the early 1900s.
After graduating from high school, Porter attended Notre Dame before joining the staff of the Joplin Globe in 1927.
A prolific, colorful wordsmith, porter gained fame throughout the state with his daily sports column, “The Globetrotter.” His column was a fixture in the left column on the lead sports page for more than 30 years.
TOM HILTON -
Tom Hilton, Parkwood High School pitcher, attended Missouri Southern and played baseball. He was the pitching coach on Norm DeBriyn’s staff at Arkansas University from 1978 through 1982.
Coach DeBriyn said: “Tom was a good recruiter and an excellent pitching coach. He stressed mental toughness and was very good mechanically. He was very much a part of building Razorback baseball to a national power. We played for the national championship in 1979, losing 2-1 to Cal-State Fullerton.”
GINGY LAAS -
For a golfer who didn’t practice much, Gingy Laas accomplished a lot during the years she played competitively.
Gingy told Clair Goodwin, golf columnist for the Joplin Globe, that her father started her playing junior golf at age eight. But it wasn’t until the early 1970s that her career in competitive amateur golf took flight.
She reached the quarterfinals in the Missouri Women’s Amateur in 1973 and later that year won the Women’s Tri-State tournament with a final-round 75 at Briarbrook Country Club. She also won the Tri-State in 1977 at Twin Oaks Country Club in Springfield and finished second in two other Tri-States.
During the 1979 state tournament, Gingy was elected president of the Missouri Women’s Golf Association and her home course, Twin Hills Golf and Country Club, hosted the 1980 state tournament.