WARR ACRES – Four individuals and one team from Putnam City High School were announced recently as the new inductees into the Putnam City District Athletics Hall of Fame.

The 1977 Putnam City Pirates finished 13-0 and only had three games that were decided by less than 10 points. Putnam City beat sister school Putnam City West, 21-14, in overtime in the Class 4A State Championship at a packed Taft Stadium in what many observers dubbed the Oklahoma high school “Game of the Century.” The title was the Pirates’ third in four years after winning it all in 1974 and 1975. The 1977 team is the first football team enshrined in the PC District Athletics Hall of Fame. The team was led by late coach Jerry Potter, who is also in the District Hall of Fame.

Mark Anderson, a 1970 graduate, excelled on the diving board for the Pirates. Anderson won four straight gold medals from 1967-70, breaking the state record with each title win . He was named a high school All-American and featured in Sports Illustrated. His collegiate career at Princeton earned him All-American honors in 1972. Anderson died in 2012.

Dr. Kenneth Cooper was an athletic standout a Putnam City High School long before he coined the term “aerobics” in 1966 and changing the world of exercise science. A 1949 graduate, Cooper was an All-State basketball player and won a state championship in the 1600-meter run for the track team. Cooper ran cross country and track at Oklahoma. He is also on the Putnam City Wall of Fame and a middle school is named in his honor.

Marita Hynes coached for five seasons at Putnam City Original at the beginning of girls athletics. Hynes joined the staff at PC after a standout career at Central State College (now the University of Central Oklahoma). She coached four different sports and led the Lady Pirates to the 1975 State Championship in softball. Hynes started the softball and field hockey programs at the University of Oklahoma, taking the Sooners to three Women’s College World Series appearances. She later became an athletic administrator at OU and helped bring the Women’s College World Series to Oklahoma City in 1996. Hynes has been inducted in the UCO Athletic Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Softball Hall of Fame and Oklahoma’s previous softball field was named in her honor in 2004.

Lou Kretlow, a 1941 graduate, played college at Oklahoma and had a 10-year Major League Baseball career after 39 months with the Army Air Corps during World War II. Kretlow was an outfielder for the Pirates, helping the school to three county tournament titles and Central Conference championships in 1940 and 1941. Kretlow was also a forward on the Pirate basketball team. Kretlow played for the Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Browns, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Athletics in his career. He later became a golf pro and sank the longest hole-in-one in the history of golf at the time, with a 427-yard shot at Lake Hefner in 1961. Kretlow died in 2007 and was buried in Enid.

The induction ceremony and dinner will be August 26 at Victory Church (4300 N. MacArthur Blvd.). For ticket information, contact the Putnam City District Athletics Office at 405-495-5200.