Ron Sturch (2006) - Hall of Fame

Ron Sturch

Induction:
2006
Class:
1958

Ron Sturch didnÕt just compete in two sports during his time at what was then Iowa State Teachers College, he dominated.

A Waterloo, Iowa, native and graduate of West High School, Sturch came to the Iowa State Teachers College campus in 1954 after a decorated prep career that included Drake Relays and state championships in the pole vault.

After sitting out during his freshman year, Sturch made an instant impact for the Panthers' track team in 1956. Competing in the high jump, pole vault, broad jump and high and low hurdles, Sturch scored 106-1/2 points for the Panthers and became the first sophomore in school history to lead the team in scoring. He repeated the feat as a junior in 1957, tallying a record 170 points as the Panthers went undefeated in meets for the fourth straight year. The team's second-highest point total was 62. Sturch then shattered his own record by ringing up 226 points in his senior campaign in 1958, as the Panthers again went unbeaten. During that year's Teachers Relays, Sturch won six events to cap a season in which he competed in seven events in each of 15 meets.

Sturch claimed the All-Round title in each of his three years, an honor given to the competitor who claimed the team's intrasquad meet. He earned all-North Central Conference honors as a sophomore and a senior, with the league meet being cancelled due to snow his junior year. In 1958, track coach Art Dickinson, who at the time had coached the Panther track teams for 33 years, called Sturch "the most outstanding all-around performer since I've been at Iowa Teachers."

For all his accomplishments on the cinder track, Sturch also made a name for himself on the gridiron at ITSC, lettering three times for coach Clyde Starbeck's Panthers. For three seasons beginning in 1955, Sturch rotated in at the halfback and end positions for Starbeck and was the team's punter. During his senior season Sturch did it all, rushing 11 times for 42 yards, catching a 46-yard touchdown pass, snagging a 13-yard interception, returning kicks and punting 20 times for 773 yards - a 38.6-yard per punt average.

After graduating from ISTC in 1958 with a bachelor's degree, Sturch entered the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany, where he participated in football and track for Army teams. In 1959, he competed in the Pan-American Track and Field Trials as a decathlete before his Army service concluded shortly thereafter. Sturch then began teaching in Oelwein and, in 1963, moved back to his hometown of Waterloo, where he taught for 32 years.

He is a member of the West High School Athletic Hall of Fame and also the Iowa Track Coaches Hall of Fame. For his work as an official in football and basketball at both the high school and college level, Sturch also was inducted into the Iowa Conference Hall of Fame and the State of Iowa Officials Hall of Fame, and he was awarded as an outstanding official by the National Federation of Interscholastic Officials Association.