PEORIA – It took 50 years, but the only Bradley men’s tennis team to win a Missouri Valley Conference championship is being inducted into the BU Hall of Fame this weekend.
Not that anyone seemed to mind the wait as the memories easily flooded the room Friday as the 1968 tennis team and four individual inductees – women’s basketball player Sara Bailey, men’s basketball player James Gillingham, soccer player Preston Good and three-sport letterman Ernie Pierantoni – were celebrated during a luncheon at Renaissance Coliseum.
“Coach (Tom) Coker must have been one great tennis coach,” tennis co-captain Bill Lofgren said, “because he took six kids from Illinois – one from Granite City, one from Danville, two from Canton and two from Peoria High School – and coached them to an undefeated season against players recruited from all over the world; players from Australia, South Africa, India, England and all over the United States.