CINCINNATI -- Sandy Koufax pitched only one season at the University of Cincinnati, but that season launched him to a career with the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers that earned him induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Koufax arrived at UC from Brooklyn, N.Y., in the fall of 1953. He made the freshman basketball team as a walk-on and later earned a partial scholarship, according to Jane Leavy's 2002 biography, "Sandy Koufax, A Lefty's Legacy."
He tried out for coach Ed Jucker's baseball team in the spring of 1954, made the team and went 3-1 with a 2.81 earned run average, 51 strikeouts and 30 walks in 31 innings. He signed with the Dodgers and began his pro career in 1955.
More than a half-century after he pitched at UC, Koufax will be inducted into the school's James P. Kelly Athletics Hall of Fame on Oct. 26.
"He was a heck of a basketball player," said Jack Twyman, a member of both UC's Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. "I think he was the premier pitcher ever to play baseball."
Joining Koufax in this year's class of inductees are UC's 1961 national championship basketball team, basketball player Jason Maxiell, football kicker Jonathan Ruffin and current swimming coach Monty Hopkins.
It took so long for Koufax to be inducted into UC's Hall of Fame probably because he pitched for the Bearcats for only one year.
"We brought it up for years, and it was always, well, he didn't graduate," said Twyman, a member of the selection committee.
"But it's how he conducted his life, and his life certainly reflected well on the University of Cincinnati."
Koufax was the National League Most Valuable Player in 1963 and was voted the Major League Player of the Decade from 1960-69. He won three consecutive Cy Young Awards from 1963 to 1965.
The 1961 UC basketball team, with a starting five of Tom Thacker, Bob Wiesenhahn, Paul Hogue, Carl Bouldin and Tony Yates, was the first under Jucker as head coach and the first after the graduation of National Player of the Year Oscar Robertson.
The Bearcats started 5-3 but didn't lose again the rest of the season, posting a 27-3 record and beating Ohio State to win the national championship.
Maxiell, who played basketball at UC from 2002-05, ranks 12th on UC's career scoring list with 1,566 points. He also ranks third in career blocked shots with 252.
He was selected in the first round of the 2005 NBA draft by Detroit and still plays for the Pistons.
Ruffin won the Lou Groza Award as the nation's top kicker in 2000, when he kicked a school-record 26 field goals. His 104 points that season ranked second to Jim O'Brien, who scored 142 at UC in 1968. He made 78.5 percent of his field-goal attempts, which remains a school record. He ranks second on UC's career scoring list with 315 points behind Jake Rogers, who scored 339.
Ruffin's breakout year came during his sophomore season in 2000 after what he described as a freshman year in which "I didn't do very well at all."
Ruffin signed free-agent contracts with the NFL's Steelers and Cowboys and the Canadian Football League's Hamilton Tiger-Cats but was cut each time. Most recently he played for New Orleans in the Arena Football League.
Hopkins is about to begin his 23rd season as coach of the UC men's and women's swim teams. Under Hopkins, the Bearcats have won 12 conference championships, with two NCAA champions (Becky Ruehl and Josh Schneider), 17 All-Americans, 14 Academic All-Americans and three Olympians.
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