Fitting inductees indeed
When the 2023 induction ceremony takes place for the Charles W. Dunaway Pioneer Hall of Fame this weekend, the organization’s namesake will not be there.
Dunaway, the longtime athletic director of Butler County Community College and basically the founder of athletics at the school, died in November of last year.
While he won’t be at these inductions physically, he will undoubtedly have a spiritual presence.
That’s because two of his favorites are joining the Hall: Dick Hartung and Bill Miller.
Those two were a part of Dunaway’s athletic team at BC3 for decades.
Hartung coached men’s basketball for the Pioneers for 28 seasons, accumulating 314 wins. He wound up guiding the women’s basketball program to 88 wins over 11 campaigns before retiring.
When BC3 needed a basketball coach, Hartung was there. The roster numbers didn’t matter. He once went through a season with five players and no bench.
When the women’s team needed a coach, Hartung stepped up to the plate again. He’d coach the women in the first game of a doubleheader, meet with them after their game, and when that talk was over, he went back to his duties as the men’s coach.
Some of Hartung’s women’s rosters were small as well. Yet this man — along with being an assistant professor at the college — willingly coached two basketball teams simultaneously for more than a decade.
That is being cut from the cloth of Dunaway.
Miller has done it all in BC3 athletics — much like Dunaway did. He served 20 years as as assistant men’s basketball coach for the Pioneers. He began coaching the golf team in 2003 and is still coaching to this day.
He’s been part of numerous championship teams in both sports.
Miller played point guard for the Pioneers and once sank 15 consecutive free throws in a game, a program record that stood for more than 35 years. He’s served the college in administrative positions for 41 years.
Again, very Dunaway-like.
Truth be told, athletic programs at two-year colleges such as BC3 cannot thrive — can barely exist, in fact — without the efforts of dedicated, versatile people like this. Another gentleman, Rob Snyder, who serves as athletic director at BC3 and has been the school’s volleyball coach for years, can be added to that list.
Like Hartung and Miller, Snyder will undoubtedly enter this Hall of Fame one day.
There are still precious few individuals in this Hall of Fame, which was dedicated in 2015. Dunaway, fittingly, was the inaugural inductee.
BC3 athletics will continue to move forward. They seem to get stronger with each passing season.
Dick Hartung and Bill Miller will rightfully be honored this weekend.
The positive effect their dedication and hard work has had on that school will go on for years to come.
Just like Chuck Dunaway’s has.
John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle
