Western Washington University Athletics inducted four alumni to its Hall of Fame on Saturday, Feb. 11.
Current and former athletes, coaches, family and friends filled Western’s Performing Arts Center Concert Hall to honor the inductees. Since starting the Hall of Fame in 1968, there have been 44 classes of inductees totaling 159 members.
Audrey Schwind
Audrey Schwind became the second rower to enter the Viking Hall of Fame.
Schwind — whose last name was Coon at the time — spent three of her four years at Western on the varsity eight shell. During those three years, the crew didn’t lose a single race to a Division II or III school while they won three straight-national championships. After the third year of that run, in 2009, Schwind was the team captain and awarded first-team Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association All-American honors.
Schwind, who hails from Kenai, Alaska, is also the only Viking in school history to become a finalist for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award, one of the top awards in collegiate athletics, which recognizes female athletes after the end of their collegiate careers for excellent standing in athletics, academics and community service.
“I feel so incredibly lucky,” Schwind said. “I know that had I not been tested as a college athlete in the way that I was … I wouldn’t have known that I had the strength and fortitude to carry on during [the past two] years of isolation and sadness and uncertainty [while being a parent].”
Audrey Schwind, right, embraces friend and former rowing teammate Julia Munger. (Finn Wendt/Cascadia Daily News)
Monika Gruszecki
Monika Gruszecki, who competed for the track and field team in the javelin, joined the Hall of Fame as the first female athlete at Western to win multiple NCAA DII national championships.
Her first championship came in 2007 as a freshman, and the second came in 2011. In 2007, 2008 and 2011, the undersized thrower earned U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches All-American honors.
On the way back from the 2008 national championship, where Gruszecki finished as the national runner-up, she informed Western track & field coach Pee Wee Halsell that she would be moving to Germany. After two years at The Phillipps University of Marburg in Germany, she returned to Western for her final year.
“It’s kismet that I came to Western,” Gruszecki said. “I wanted to come to Western because Mount Baker is right there and I wanted to ski in winter. When I was in elementary school, I saw potential as a bad word because every report card would say, ‘Monika has good potential but talks too much in class’ … but my experience at Western taught me that I can take potential and cultivate it and grow it into something new.”
Monika Gruszecki smiles as she recounts her time spent throwing javelin for Western Washington University. (Finn Wendt/Cascadia Daily News)
Oscar Jimenez
Oscar Jimenez spent four years between 2008–11 playing for Western’s men’s soccer team as a midfielder. During that time, he accrued 22 assists, tying the program’s all-time record.
In 2010, he was named to the all-Great Northwest Athletic Conference first team Daktronics all-West Region after leading Western with four goals and seven assists that season.
After his time at Western, Jimenez returned as a volunteer assistant coach for the squad in 2013 and 2014.
Since then, Jimenez has played six seasons for Louisville City FC, which is part of the United Soccer League Championship, a tier under Major League Soccer.
“This [honor] caught me off guard because I’ve been around so many incredible players,” Jimenez said. “Being here at Western has made me the person I am today. I’ve picked up so many qualities from not only my teammates … but also the staff members that work here, coaches and everybody here.”
Former Western soccer player Oscar Jimenez gives his inductee speech. (Finn Wendt/Cascadia Daily News)
Paul Madison
Paul Madison joins the Hall of Fame after dedicating 48 years to Western athletics. In his first quarter as a student at Western in 1966, he became the statistics collector for the athletic department. In his second quarter, he took a sports information role.
While continuing to work in sports information, the journalism program began during Madison’s fourth year, and he took a fifth year to graduate in the field.
In 1974, he was hired as Western’s first full-time sports information director. Madison was inducted into the College Sports Information Directors of America Hall of Fame in 2011.
In 2015, Madison retired from the position and became Western’s volunteer athletics historian.
“Two words describe how I feel today: honored, humbled,” Madison said. “I am so thankful for the late times — many times after midnight — when I would walk out of the north entrance of the old Carver Gym and walk to my car, seeing the moon over Sehome Hill, tired, but with a great feeling of satisfaction over what had been accomplished that day. That meant a lot to me.”
Paul Madison takes stats at a Western Washington University softball game. (Photo courtesy of WWU Athletics)
