Student athletes from Granite Ridge Intermediate School got to tour the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame in June. YouTube screengrab

The Fresno County Athletic Hall of Fame has announced its 2023 induction class to be honored at an annual enshrinement event on Wednesday, Sept. 20 at the hall’s permanent home inside the Save Mart Center.

The class of 2023 includes James Patrick, Jaime Ramirez, Todd Riech, Rolland Todd and the 1968 Fresno State men’s tennis team.

“We have three high-profile coaches, an Olympian and a national championship team,” said Hall of Fame Board President Gena Strang-Behrens in a news release. “This is a terrific class.”

James Patrick is the winningest high school baseball coach in Central Section history. Patrick spent a major part of his career at Clovis High School. After 34 seasons, he retired in May 2019 with over 750 wins, 13 league championships and nine section titles, including two national titles.

Jaime Ramirez began his career as the head coach for the Fresno Pacific University men’s soccer team in 1991, after spending nine years as an assistant coach. He is the winningest coach in FPU history, and was also a former Sunbird player after a standout career at Clovis High School. He was a three-time NAIA all-American from 1977-1980.

In 32 seasons, Ramirez won 320 games including Pacific West Conference Championships, eight Golden State Athletic Conference Championships, five Region Championships and nine National Championship Tournament appearances. His 350 wins are the most in FPU men’s soccer history and his .625 winning percentage is also the best among the seven coaches in the history of the program.

Ramirez also helped launch the FPU women’s soccer club in 1998. He coached the team through three club seasons and its first five intercollegiate seasons. He passed the reins to long-time assistant Erik Farfan prior to the start of the 2006 season.

Todd Riech was a javelin thrower who competed with Fresno State and later on the big stage at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Prior to the Olympics, he won the national title in the javelin at the U.S. Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

Reich broke the NCAA record in the javelin as a senior at Fresno State in 1994. He continued to compete at the national level, finishing third in the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials, but he did not have an A qualifier so he didn’t compete in Sydney.

He wasn’t always a javelin thrower. Reich started out as a decathlete but a hip injury led him to focus on javelin. He became a member of the Native American Sports council, representing the Flathead and Kootenai Tribe. He then became a coach and personal trainer, co-founding and co-owning ProSport Performance.

Rolland Todd was the first-ever head coach of the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers. A native of Strathmore, Todd played basketball at Fresno State in the 1950s where his roommate was Jerry Tarkanian. Todd scored 965 points in 64 games with the Bulldogs.

After graduating from Fresno State, Todd played for the Buchan Bakers, based in Seattle, for the National Industrial Basketball League (NIBL) from 1958-1960. He signed with the St. Louis Hawks of the NBA in June 1960, but then took on a teaching job in Seattle.

He then went on to coach basketball at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas before his time with the Trail Blazers.

The 1968 Fresno State men’s tennis team won the Division II national championship, beating California State University, Los Angeles. The team had an 11-1 record in dual meets that year. In addition, Jim Powers and Gary Ogden won the national title in doubles.