Readers up to the task in picking best athletes in Region history

I can’t argue with the final results.

We recently asked Monroe News readers to vote for the best male and female athletes in Monroe County Region history.

It’s an impossible task because there is no right answer.

Speaking of thankless jobs, I was asked to come up with a list of candidates for an online poll.

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I turned to my friend and former colleague Doug Donnelly for help. He is the premier historian of Monroe County Region sports.

Originally, we were going to have a list of 20 males and 20 females.

It quickly expanded to 25.

Then 30.

Finally, we halted it at 35.

Why 35?

Honestly, I don’t know.

The line just had to be drawn somewhere.

We could have expanded it to 50 or 100 and there still would have been worthy candidates that got left out.

Some didn’t make the cut.

Others were simply missed.

For instance, one reader messaged me to ask, “Did you forget Cheyenne Cousineau?”

I could only respond by saying yes. She somehow failed to emerge from my faulty memory banks.

The Bedford graduate absolutely belonged on the list of candidates.

She was the Monroe County Region Girls Diver of the Year four times from 2006-09, a three-time state champion, earned a full scholarship to Ohio State, was a Big Ten champion in 2012, placed third at the NCAA finals, competed in the United States Olympic Trials twice, was a U.S. national champion and finished seventh at the World Cup.

Somehow, I missed her when assembling the candidates.

And she wasn’t the only great athlete overlooked.

Another reader suggested Deb Rollman should have been considered.

“She was a five-tool player before the phrase was invented,” one of her former Bedford teammates wrote of the woman who helped Texas A&M win an NCAA softball championship and finish as national runner-up twice.

Another e-mailer insisted that Dundee star and current minor-league baseball player Zach Fruit belonged on the list of candidates.

Someone else said I missed Mark German. The problem there was that while German gained fame as Bedford’s athletic director, he never played in the Region.

He was a standout at Bronson High School and the University of Toledo.

Surprisingly, there were only a few of the people who alerted me about possible omissions.

I told all of them the same thing.

I have a love-hate relationship with this kind of project.

Yes, polls like this are great for stirring debate and getting readers involved, but I always agonize over missing deserving candidates and hurting feelings.

The positives seem to outweigh the negatives.

People enjoyed the project.

There were 19,014 votes cast in the female poll and 17,039 in the male vote.

Jackson Lamb of Bedford and New Boston Huron’s Elizabeth Anderson emerged as the winners.

Both were excellent choices.

Lamb was the Region Player of the Year twice in baseball and once in basketball. He went on to become a star at the University of Michigan and twice was selected in the Major League Baseball draft.

Each time he turned down offers from MLB teams and returned home to become an assistant coach at his alma mater.

I was lucky enough to see the first points of Lamb’s high school basketball career.

On an early December day in 2009, the skinny freshman soared to snare an ally-oop pass off an inbounds play and slammed it through the hoop to silence a raucous crowd at St. Mary Catholic Central’s Brother Gerontius Memorial Gymnasium.

It was a preview of the greatness to come.

Anderson was one of the greatest track and field sprinters I’ve ever seen in person. She made it look effortless with her signature upright running style.

She won two state championships in the 400 meters and one in the 200. She currently is running at Michigan State.

It’s easy to forget with the recent success of Erie Mason sprinter Giuliana Nastale and Ida hurdler Julia Hughes, but Region girls had enjoyed very limited success in the shorter races on the track before Anderson came around.

Despite my shortcomings in preparing the lists, I commend the voters for making this a fun exercise.

Let’s do it again in another 250 years.

Readers can contact Niles at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Readers up to the task in picking best athletes in Region history

Indexed and credited by AIPROPX. Originating outlet: Yahoo Sports. Open at source →