Quartet didn’t travel alone
In 1996, Dan O’Brien felt the stress.
He knew the decathlon gold medal was right there, his to lose. He compared the feeling to shooting the make-or-break free throws at the end of a state championship basketball game, or the game-winning field goal as time expires in a football game.
To look around and see familiar faces – that made him feel good.
He was high jumping at the 1996 Atlanta Games, where he finally captured the elusive gold medal after a missing the ‘92 games because of a no-height in the pole vault, when he spotted his coach at Spokane Falls Community College, Dwayne Hartman.
Hartman was a high jump official in Atlanta on the left pit, and O’Brien was jumping on the right pit. In between jumps, O’Brien went to talk to his former coach.
“I said ‘Coach, how’s it going?’ ” O’Brien said.
It had taken Hartman years to earn a trip as an official to the Olympic Games.
Hartman’s response: “I can’t talk to you.”
“Why not?” O’Brien asked.
“I can’t play favorites,” Hartman said.
O’Brien credited Hartman as one of the guys who jump-started his career at Tuesday’s Inland Northwest Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Arena. O’Brien was enshrined, along with former NFL No. 1 draft pick Steve Emtman, athlete and coach Jeanne Eggart Helfer and world-renowned mountain climber John Roskelley. Added to the Scroll of Honor were former sports editor of The Spokesman-Review, Jeff Jordan, and retired Superior Court judge Jim Murphy.
Locals caught their first glimpse of O’Brien at the University of Idaho and SFCC, but it was in his postcollegiate career that O’Brien made a name for himself.
He won Olympic gold in the decathlon in 1996, finishing with an Olympic-record 8,824 points, world championships in 1991, 1993 and 1995 and two Goodwill Games titles.
O’Brien lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he coaches at Arizona State.
“I want to congratulate the other honorees today, and Steve,” O’Brien said, turning to Emtman, “that’s one big jacket, brother.”
A dominating force on defense, Emtman was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame last year. He played at Cheney High School and went on to win a national title and several individual honors, including the Lombardi and Outland trophies, with the 12-0 Washington Huskies in 1991 and was picked No. 1 overall by the Indianapolis Colts in the 1992 NFL draft.
His pro career was limited to six seasons because of knee injuries.
“Today was a day where I really started to reflect back a little further as to how I ever got back to that point (of winning a national championship at Washington in 1991) … you don’t stand up here and become part of any Hall of Fame without great influences in your life,” said Emtman.
He went on to name former Cheney basketball coach and Washington State Basketball Coaches Hall of Famer Denny Humphrey as one of his greatest coaches.
Helfer was a standout athlete in every sport in which she competed – basketball, volleyball, track and tennis – during her high school career in Walla Walla and went on to become the most prolific scorer in Washington State Cougars basketball history. She also set the WSU record in javelin (178 feet, 2 inches), the oldest record still standing at the school.
Helfer retired from coaching in 2006. Her career record at Mead and Mt. Spokane high schools from 1983 through retirement was 329-213 with a 29-7 record at state tournaments.
“It makes me very uncomfortable to be standing up here by myself,” Helfer said, “because so many people were responsible and played such key roles in my life in order for me to get here.”
Roskelley, a Shadle Park graduate, is regarded as one of the world’s top mountain climbers. His first ascents of Uli Biaho in Pakistan and Gaurishankar in Nepal have yet to be repeated. A former County Commissioner, Roskelley made the first American ascents of Nepal’s Dhaulagiri in 1973 and others throughout the 1970s.
“It stuns the imagination for a mountain climber to be listed among these legends,” Roskelley said of being inducted into a Hall that includes athletes such as John Stockton, Gerry Lindgren and Mark Rypien.
Jordan was a sports journalist at the Spokane Daily Chronicle and The S-R for 32 years, including 20 as the sports editor. His sports sections were recognized three times as one of the top 10 in the country by Associated Press sports editors.
Jordan remains active on steering committees of the sports banquet and junior awards luncheon and the Inland Northwest Sports Hall of Fame.
Murphy, a Spokane native known in the athletic world for his active role in the local, national and world track and field scene, is the former president of Team Spokane Track Club and was an organizing member on the committee for the 1989 National Junior Outdoor Championships in Spokane and the 1992 and 1995 USA Masters Championships in Spokane.
He is still involved in a handful of committees, including the IAAF drug arbitration panel and the court of arbitration for sports in Lausanne, Switzerland.