6 named to 2023 OHS Hall of Fame
A football field is nothing new for Keith Bangs. However, his appearance on the new Federated Field at Owatonna Stadium this Friday night will be special. The longtime boys’ golf coach, who tracked stats for football for more than 30 years, is entering the OHS Athletic Hall of Fame.
The public is invited to a program at 4 p.m. in the auditorium at the new high school on Friday, Sept. 15. The inductees will speak then and a ceremony will follow during halftime of the football game against New Prague.
Bangs joins John Cummings (Class of 1944), Chuck Pribyl (1972), Cory Urban (2000), Kerry Shea (2002), and Dave Furness (community member) in the 2023 Hall of Fame class.
“I’m very honored to be given this thrill,” Bangs said. “I’m just very excited and appreciative to the committee for deciding that I could be put into that category.”
“I simply enjoyed doing it. The type of kids that we had, all those years, very good kids. And the cooperation we got with the golf courses and the community. The Owatonna Country Club and Brooktree and the par three at Havana Hills and Hidden Creek… It was a real enjoyable process, and I just loved it,” said Bangs.
His teams were state runner-up twice out of six trips while winning seven Big Nine titles.
“It was a very competitive situation with the other schools. The other coaches were great guys and the kids from the other teams were fun to get to know. It was just a very, very rewarding thing I was able to be a part of,” said Bagns.
He was a three-time state coach of the year. After retiring from teaching, Bangs coached for another 13 years.
In addition to nearly 35 years as golf coach, he was head coach for volleyball for four years, spent a winter coaching seventh-grade boys’ basketball and officiated football. As a math teacher and self-proclaimed numbers geek, taking on the stats for football was a natural move. And as a sports fan he “had the best seat in the house on the line of scrimmage.”
Bangs attended the opening night football game and was impressed with the facility, wishing he could walk the sidelines again.
Fellow inductees
Plenty of the yardage he added up in the late 1990’s belonged to Urban, who graduated as the all-time leading rusher in school history. His spin moves at the line of scrimmage left many defenders grasping air as he raced down the field.
He was a member of the state championship wrestling team in 1998 and competed individually at state that year. Urban won 109 matches in his five-season career. He ran on the 4x100 relay team that took fifth at state his junior year. He was a seven-time all-conference selection across three sports.
Shea was a freshman on the state runner-up basketball team in 1999. A four-year letter winner, she was injured her senior season and spent some nights on the radio with me doing color commentary. Shea was a junior and senior athlete of the year while also playing soccer and golf. She was a captain in all three sports. She also played basketball and golf at the University of St. Thomas.
Pribyl played football, hockey and baseball for the Indians. He was a three-year starter on the ice, earning All-Big Nine honors. He held the OHS assist record when he graduated. Pribyl played hockey at the Air Force Academy, where he was a captain.
Cummings lettered 12 times in football, basketball, baseball and track. He was nominated by Harvey Ronglein, a historian of the West Hills Orphanage, where Cummings lived. Hall of Fame committee chair Doug Wanous said, “His athletic abilities, his achievements were worthy of Hall of Fame recognition. But what transcended that was the adversity that he faced in his living at the orphanage, plus then serving our country in World War II. All of those compounded the selection for John.” Cummings left for the military during his senior year.
Furness spearheaded numerous soccer initiatives in town and served many years with the soccer association. He was once named the state’s youth soccer volunteer of the year. The HOF committee appreciated “his vision and commitment to developing the program,” Wanous stated. “He played an integral part in developing the Lincoln sports complex as we know it today. Nine fields, two pavilions and two parking lots. It’s a place people take pride in,” said Wanous.
The committee considers Furness the “Godfather of Owatonna soccer.”