More than just a secretary

Shirley Ramsay glides back through her 19 years with the Yuba College Athletic Department on an emotional roller coaster — beaming in the highs, tearing up with the lows.

She remembers with great delight sharing coffee and conversation with her longtime colleague and friend Larry Poole before the workday even started.

She recalls with great sorrow the tragedies that defined human relationships and softened the staff into family.

The mere thought of giving her speech when she is inducted into the Hall of Fame on Saturday, however, spins that ride out of control — and the dizziness started a year and a half ago.

"She (Thea Post) called me ... a little more than a year ago and she told me I had been nominated," said Ramsay, who along with her husband, Jerry, travel the country in their 40-foot RV coach.

"I told her I could not come home, and she said, 'Can't you fly home?' and I said I already had made plans. But I told her I would come back this year."

It seems as if it has been one anxiety attack after another ever since, and particularly since the couple cut their recent trip to Yuma, Ariz., short to head back here.

"I wrote my acceptance speech on the road back," she said.

She will be honored with seven other individuals, plus the 1951 football team at the ceremony at the Peach Tree Golf & Country Club.

Although Ramsay did not reveal what she plans to say, her tenure at the college extends beyond her two decades in athletics.

Shirley Fingerlos, a native of Glide, Ore., started on Feb. 24, 1968 as the secretary of the nursing program within the Life Sciences Division. In 1979, she transferred to what was then the Health, Physical Education and Recreation/Social Science Division.

She retired on May 31, 2000. She still wears the watch given to her during the commencement breakfast.

Along the way, she worked for three athletic directors — Cal Gower, a former football coach, Joe McCarron, a former basketball coach, and current athletic director Rod Beilby, a former baseball coach.

She witnessed the expansion of women's sports and saw funding sources for athletics dry up and the shift to coaches' fundraising efforts. She watched on as the administrative and social culture of the department changed.

"When I first went to work out there .... we had nine sports and six full-time coaches, and one part-time coach," Ramsay said. "But when I left, we had 11 sports, only one full-time coach and the rest were part-time coaches."

The mere thought of those coaches brings joyful — and sorrowful — tears to her eyes.

Ramsay glows with the memory of track and field coaching legend John Orognen, but is saddened by the memory of his painful death and the memory of the Orognen family's loss of a son in a freak accident.

"That was the worst thing that happened," she said.

And like so much that flows through the Hall of Fame structure, one memory is quickly linked to another, then another.

It was sophomore Stacy Mikaelson — known to the world as Olympic pole vault gold medalist and one-time world record holder Stacy Dragila — who drove the track team home after coach Orognen was forced to come back early from a meet to deal with his son's tragedy.

Dragila would be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001, and Ramsay was there.

In fact, she had Dragila sign three boxes of Wheaties with the Olympian's picture: kept one for herself, and gave the others to Poole and Post.

Ramsay's eyes gleam and glisten with her memories of legendary baseball coach Gary Engelken, who was honored along side Dragila.

She counts off the others' names and smiles as if each was sitting next to her.

"One of my favorite coaches was coach Ham, Bob Hamilton," said Ramsay, her smile growing as the memories flooded back. "He used to get so mad at his (basketball) players, and he used to do the silliest things, like go sit up in the stands and put a bag over his head."

And, of course, there were the thousands of athletes who poured in and out of her office.

"They were all so sweet; I loved them all," she said. "Even after I retired, I was over at the post office in Marysville and a couple of the soccer girls came over and gave me big hugs."

She admits, she holds a special spot in her heart for Stacy Mikaelson.

Ramsay is the second secretary to be honored — and as with her predecessor, Sandie Brown-Shinkle (2005) — the role often became one of surrogate mother.

Ramsay scolded those athletes who wore their cleats into the gym and department hallways.

Yet, one day she read an article about an athlete she especially liked, so she clipped it out and taped it to the office window. The athletes soon clamored for more, and a tradition still alive today was born.

"And years ago, I had a cuss cup in the office," said Ramsay, who charged various fees for the extreme of the utterances — and athletic directors were not immuned.

"The football players used to congregate in the hall and so I took the cuss cup and told them when the cup was full we would buy pizza," Ramsay said. "Then one day, a football player came in and the cup was full, and he apologized. Now that player teaches at Yuba City — Joel Seaman — I will never forget that. And we never bought the pizza."

She takes a breath as the thought hung in the air, stunned by the realization of her grip on the department's history.

"When I retired, I had been at Yuba College for more than half my life," Ramsay said.

Today, Ramsay, 69, delights in her life as a full-time RVer.

She and her husband, who first met 50 years ago in Bangor, Maine, only to reconnect decades later, will celebrate their sixth anniversary next month. They travel across the United States with an agenda of warm weather and a carefree lifestyle.

"We're homeless people. We live on the road," she said.

Ramsay has three children from her first marriage, and five grandchildren. Her daughter, Lorrie Synak, and two of her grandchildren will be at the induction ceremony. Her grandson, Michael, is a Yuba College student.

"I know this is a great honor. I just hope to get through it."

2009 Class

YUBA COLLEGE ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Robert Aaberg

Harold "Hal" Athon

David Chiono

Jim Hanifan

Eugene "Gene" Hilliard

Jessie Brown-Ingram

Shirley Fingerlos Ramsay

Delbert Thornsberry

1951 Football Team