Northmont adds six to hall of fame

CLAYTON — Northmont High School opened 2010 by inducting the latest class into its athletic hall of fame. The ceremony was held Saturday, Jan. 16 at the high school auditorium.

The class included six members, ranging from former high school athletes to coaches and administrators.

Members of the class included:

• Joe Barnes, from the Class of 1999, was voted five-times MVP at Northmont — three times for cross country and twice for track. Barnes was a member of two Division I state championship cross country teams and was an All-Ohio and All-American selection.

He qualified twice for the Foot Locker National Cross Country Meet. Barnes currently works as an intervention specialist at the school and coaches the middle school cross-country team.

• David Diggs, class of 1998, was a four-year letterwinner in basketball and finished his career as Northmont’s all-time career scorer with 1,712 points. He holds records for best 3-point percentage for a season at 49 percent, best single-game field goal percentage at 92 percent and the single-season scoring record of 531 points.

Diggs played at Marquette for four years and is an investment consultant for Chase Securities in Chicago.

• Rick Dill was hired by Northmont to teach high school English in 1970. He began the Northmont athletic training program to treat injured athletes and served as an assistant basketball and head baseball coach.

Dill won the Miami Valley Baseball Coaches Association AAA Coach of the Year award and the Southwest Ohio Baseball Coach of the Year award, both in 1981. Dill became assistant principal at the high school in 1984. He became principal at Dublin Coffman in 1990 and retired in ’99.

• John Downs, class of 1989, was MVP and Best Defensive player on the Northmont 25-0 boys soccer state championship team from that fall. As a senior pitcher on the baseball team, Downs was 7-0 with a 1.12 ERA and batted .362.

Downs played baseball at Muscetine (Iowa) Junior College and was drafted in the 20th round by the Kansas City Royals in 1991.

• Dan Gowdon, class of 1994, played four years of varsity basketball at Northmont. He earned GMVC league honors four times and broke the Northmont career scoring mark as a junior.

He finished his career with 1,445 points and held the school’s mark for four years. Gowdon was named All-Ohio and played basketball at The Citadel. He graduated in 1998, earned his master’s in business from Toledo University and settled in Charleston, S.C.

• Chris Webb, class of 1991, was a four-year starter on both the girls basketball and soccer teams. She scored 57 goals and had 20 assists during her soccer career and was named All-Ohio in 1989-90. She holds the girls basketball career record with 41 points.

She was a four-year starter on the basketball and soccer teams at North Carolina Wesleyan, where she became an assistant coach upon graduating from college. Her coaching career included stops at Campbell University, East Carolina, the Carolina Dynamo professional team and Elon University. Webb currently is an administrator for the Arizona Youth Soccer Association.

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