Volleyball Athletes, Coaches Highlight 2026 National High School Hall of Fame Class

Last week, the 43^rd class of the National High School Hall of Fame was released by the NFHS – one of the most anticipated announcements each year as the NFHS showcases individuals who have had extraordinary achievements in high school sports and other activity programs.

One of the best parts about the announcement each year is that the class represents everyone involved in an education-based high school activities program: athletes, coaches, officials, administrators and leaders in the performing arts/fine arts programs.

And this year is no different with five former high school athletes, three high school coaches, two contest officials, one former state association administrator and one former fine arts educator.

Volleyball received top billing in this year’s class with two athletes and two coaches involved in the No. 2-most popular high school sport for girls nationwide.  

Alisha Glass Childress and Jordan Larson are two of the top players in the history of high school volleyball. Childress still holds three national records from her days at Leland (Michigan) High School, and she went on to win three NCAA championships at Penn State University. Larson was one of the most celebrated players in Nebraska history at Logan View High School in Hooper, before her days at the University of Nebraska and an Olympic standout at the past four Summer Games. Childress and Larson were teammates on the 2016 U.S. Olympic team that won a bronze medal in Brazil.

Krissy Wendell-Pohl, the most celebrated player in the history of girls ice hockey in Minnesota, is another athlete in this year’s class. As a junior, Wendell-Pohl scored a single-season national record 109 goals and registered 30 assists. One season later, she set a still-standing national mark of 110 goals. She finished her two-year career with a national record 314 points. In that amazing two-year stretch of dominance, Park Center had a 54-1 record, which included the Minnesota State High School League state championship in 2000.

Wendell-Pohl is paying it back today as assistant coach at Hill-Murray High School in suburban St. Paul, working with her husband and head coach, John Pohl, and coaching her three daughters who are on the team.           

The other athletes in this year’s class are Joe Carter, a four-sport athlete at Millwood High School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who in 1993 hit the walk-off home run to win the World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays, and Patrick Willis, a football and basketball standout athlete at Hollow Rock-Bruceton Central High School in Bruceton, Tennessee, before his stellar career with the San Francisco 49ers.  

Carter did not participate in track and field in the spring since it conflicted with baseball; however, in his senior season, he attended the regional track meet to watch his girlfriend compete. The boys team’s coach asked Joe if he wanted to compete in the long jump. He accepted the invitation, borrowed a uniform, won the regional long jump title and then won the long jump at the state meet the following weekend with a 23-0 effort. 

The three coaches in the 2026 class led their teams to 23 state titles and had a combined record of 2,558-540, which translates to winning 83 percent of their games. In addition to all the victories and championships, they also had a lasting impact on thousands of individuals.

The Hall of Fame coaches include Jan Barker, who led Amarillo (Texas) High School to 10 Texas University Interscholastic League Class 5A state volleyball championships in 31 years; David Gentry, the winningest football coach in North Carolina history who led Murphy High School to nine North Carolina High School Athletic Association Class 1A state football titles; and Flo Valdez, the multi-sport coach at Roswell (New Mexico) High School who finished her career as the outstanding volleyball coach at Franklin High School in El Paso, Texas. 

While the accomplishments of these eight athletes and coaches are other-worldly, the achievements of the two contest officials the past 60 years are equally impressive.  

Burney Jenkins, a three-sport official from Georgetown, Kentucky, and one of the state’s most decorated officials, has dedicated 50 years of his life to high school sports, serving as a referee, umpire and later as an assigning secretary – all “for the love of the game.” Jenkins has called six Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) State Football Championships (three as referee), five KHSAA State Basketball Finals and five State Baseball Final Four Tournaments.

Mary Lou Thimas, for the past 60 years in Massachusetts, has been the guiding light as an official in the girls sports of field hockey and lacrosse. She started as a field hockey official in 1965 in her sophomore year at Bridgewater State College and continues to officiate the sport today. She has officiated EVERY postseason field hockey tournament since the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) started championships in the 1980s. She added girls lacrosse to her officiating duties in 1982 and, also has officiated in every MIAA girls lacrosse tournament since the inception of the sport.

 The final members of this year’s class are Steve Savarese, who led the Alabama High School Athletic Association from 2007 to 2021 after an outstanding 33-year high school coaching career; and Craig Ihnen, former director of the Iowa High School Speech Association (IHSSA) for 28 years after 13 years as a classroom speech teacher. 

Nationally, Savarese was heavily involved in the NFHS Network, serving as chairman of the NFHS Network Board of Directors, and was instrumental in the financial success of the venture for schools and state associations. He also served a term on the NFHS Board of Directors, including a year as president-elect prior to his retirement.

Under Ihnen’s leadership at the IHSSA, the association expanded festivals, strengthened adjudication systems, increased professional development offerings for educators and promoted essential life skills fostered through speech and debate. Within the state of Iowa and nationally through his work with the NFHS, Ihnen became a widely respected advocate, admired for his ability to bring people together in service of education-based activities. 

 This year’s class of the National High School Hall of Fame is truly a cause for celebration for the impact these 12 individuals have had – and will continue to have – on high school sports and other activity programs.