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Last updated on Thursday, September 20, 2012
(BLOOMINGTON) - Former Indiana star quarterback Antwaan Randle El and Landon Turner, a forward on the Hoosiers’s 1981 national championship basketball team, were named to the IU Athletics Hall of Fame on Monday, highlighting a seven-person class.
Dustin, Dopirak, of the Herald Times reports, part of the class were former softball star Michelle Venturella, football player and Varsity Club Director Dave Martin, football and baseball player Bobby Robertson, swimmer Larry Schulhof, and women's administrator Leanne Grotke. The class will be formally inducted at a dinner on Nov. 2 and honored on Nov. 3 at the Indiana-Iowa football game.
Randle El graduated at Indiana as the football program's all-time leader in passing yards (7,469) and total offense (11,364) and its second all-time leading rusher (3,895). He threw for 42 touchdowns and rushed for 44. He was the first player in NCAA history to score 40 touchdowns (45) and throw for 40 touchdowns (42), first to record more than 2,500 total yards in four seasons, first to pass for more than 6,000 yards and first to rush for over 3,000 yards. He was named Big Ten MVP and a first-team All-American in 2001 and was a three-time All-Big Ten pick.
Turner averaged 7.5 points and 3.8 rebounds in three seasons with the Hoosiers and started and averaged 9.5 points and a team-high 3.7 rebounds per game on the 1981 title team. Before his senior year, however, he was involved in a traffic accident that left him paralyzed. In 1982, he was named an honorary All-American by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and drafted by the Boston Celtics. He eventually got his degree from Indiana in 1984 and went on to play wheelchair basketball and become an inspirational speaker.
Venturella was a second-team All-American in 1994 and a third-team All-American in 1995, and she helped the Team USA softball squad to Olympic gold medals in 1996 and 2000. She holds Indiana's career record in runs batted in.
Robertson was Indiana's team MVP as a halfback in 1950 and was named All-Big Ten as a baseball player in 1954 when he led the conference with a .438 average. Schulhof was U.S. National Champion in the 100 and 200 butterfly in 1962, and at one point owned the American record in the 200 butterfly. Grotke was Coordinator of Women's Athletics from 1972 to 1979 when women's sports became varsity sports at Indiana. Martin was a three-time football letterman, but also the director of the IU Varsity Club and worked in IU fundraising for 35 years.
"These individuals embody the spirit for which administrators, coaches and student-athletes are best known at Indiana University," Indiana athletic director Fred Glass said in a statement. "IU Athletics has long been a benchmark of excellence - both in the classroom and in competition - and these Hoosier greats certainly are responsible for helping establish that. We have great strengths and traditions because of their efforts, and it is with much gratitude that we recognize them for their service to IU."
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