Four to be inducted into WVFCA Hall of Fame

The Wabash Valley Football Coaches Association each year in conjunction with the annual All-Star game inducts a class in to its Hall of Fame.

Candidates are selected from their peers and have either served as coaches, administrators or strong advocates of football in the Wabash Valley.

The WVFCA is proud to induct in the Hall of Fame for 2012 Coach Dick Parker, Coach Keith Sinclair and Coach Dan Vukovits. These gentlemen have long served football and influenced the game as well as the hundreds of young men who played for them through their careers.

They will be recognized at the annual awards banquet Friday June 22 at Hulman Center. Anyone wishing to attend the banquet may contact the WVFCA at (812)-878-4572 for reservations or ticket information.

Dick Parker

Dick is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University where he earned three letters in football.

He was an assistant coach at EIU upon his graduation with Coach Ralph Kohl. He started his high school career at Mohamet-Seymour High School where he coached football, basketball and served as Athletic Director.

He then went on to the University of Illinois where he pursued his doctorate degree and helped coach the U of I football team. He then became the head coach at North Central College for two years. He returned to high school football in 1972 as head coach of Marshall High School.

During his eight seasons at Marshall his teams won conference championships five times and his 1979 team went 11-1 losing their only game to the eventual state champions. Coach Parker also is credited with writing several articles that were published by the Athletic Journal.

Keith Sinclair

Keith recently retired from Casey-Westfield where he has served as football coach for 27 seasons.

During this time his teams have won 236 games and appeared in the state championship game 4 times, winning the 1985 Illinois State Championship.

Nine times during the regular season his teams have gone undefeated and recently has a 46 game win streak halted. He has also coached basketball and track for over 20 years.

The football field at Casey-Westfield is named the " Sinclair-Vidoni Field" after him and his long-time assistant Gene Vidoni. Hundreds of his players over the years have gone on to play college football with several going to Rose-Hulman including current quarterback Mitch Snyder who is an alum of WVFCA All-Star game.

He is a 2007 inductee into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame.

Dan Vukovits

Dan is a graduate of Butler University and currently teaching in the Rockville School Corporation where he has been for over 30 years.

He started his coaching career at Rockville as an assistant coach. As an assistant his teams were 25-17 and had a perfect 10-0 season in 1984 where they were also Conference Champions.

He became head coach in 1986 and his teams produced 85 victories. They won two sectional championships and four conference championships during this time. They were the Covered Bridge Champions nine times during this period.

He moved on to Terre Haute North where he served as an assistant coach to Chris Barrett and then finally on to North Putnam as an assistant to Greg Barrett where their team finished State runner-ups in 2010.

He has the distinction of working with two generations of the Barrett family, Jay Barrett and then his two sons.