Sports Hall of Fame honors women’s sports titans

Editor’s note: Springfield Business Journal mistakenly published last year’s Women’s Sports Luncheon honorees in the March 4 print edition. Below are the 2019 honorees.

The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame is slated to honor more than a dozen women’s sports players, coaches, stakeholders and organizations at its annual Women’s Sports Luncheon.

The Hall of Fame plans to induct six and present awards to seven during the March 27 ceremony at University Plaza Hotel & Convention Center, according to a news release.

The inductees are:
• the Fast Break Club, a Missouri State University organization that promoted athletics and was led by the late Mary Jo Wynn, who died in January;
• Becky Lipasek, who’s coached high school volleyball coach for 29 years, 27 of which were in Missouri, and has led teams in El Dorado Springs, Reeds Spring and Branson;
• Mike Tyree, one of the winningest high school volleyball coaches in the state with 22 seasons at St. Francis Borgia High School in Washington, Missouri;
• the MSU volleyball program, which has more than 1,250 victories to rank fifth on the NCAA all-time list;
• the Republic High School girl’s basketball 1994 state championship team, which finished with a 31-1 record; and
• the Sedalia Smith-Cotton High School girl’s golf program, which has won six state championships, the third-most in state history.

The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame also will present the Wynn Awards to sports standouts in honor of MSU’s Wynn, according to the release.

They’ll be awarded to Mindy Coyle of Warrensburg High School and University of Missouri; Jo Ann Harrison of Southwest Baptist University; Tammy Townsend Holder of Neosho High School and College of the Ozarks; Anne-Mary McGrath of the Springfield-Greene County Park Board; Cindy Metts of Lebanon High School; Taira Roth of St. Joseph Central High School and Missouri Western State University; and Lisa Tinkler of Drury University.