Four to be inducted into Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame

COEUR d’ALENE — Former University of Idaho football greats Sam Merriman and Sherriden May, along with former Silver Valley high school stars from the 1960s, Denny Almquist and John Shelt, will be inducted into the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame during the 56th annual North Idaho Sports Award Banquet presented by Les Schwab on April 14 at the Best Western Plus Coeur d’Alene Inn.

The four were selected by the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame board of directors and will be honored during the annual spring event. The induction ceremony is part of the annual banquet that honors North Idaho high school and college athletes, coaches and teams who excelled in their respective sports during the spring and fall of 2017 and the winter of 2017-18.

MERRIMAN WAS a key part of UI’s football rise in power during the early 1980s. He played his first two seasons under coach Jerry Davitch and then his final two years under Dennis Erickson.

Merriman, 56, was born and raised in Tucson, Ariz., and played linebacker at Idaho during 1979-83. He was a four-year starter and led the team in tackles his final three seasons. He earned all-conference honors all four seasons, including first-team all-conference his senior year. He was the team’s defensive MVP both his junior and senior seasons.

Merriman is the program’s all-time leading tackler with 519, which is 58 more than any other UI player. He had at least 111 tackles in every season, including 145 as a junior, which is the fourth-highest total in UI history. He is also tied for the all-time lead in career fumble recoveries with seven.

His most memorable game as a Vandal came in UI’s first NCAA Division I-AA playoff game, which was in 1982 at home against Montana when he made three consecutive goal-line tackles late in the fourth quarter when Montana had the ball inside the Idaho 2 to preserve the UI win.

Merriman played in the East-West Shrine Game and caught the attention of the Seattle Seahawks, who drafted him in the seventh round in the 1983 draft. He made his mark as an outstanding player on special teams for five seasons. He was penciled in as a starter during his sixth season, but suffered a career-ending knee injury in the second preseason game.

Merriman now resides in Tucson, where he helps with area rodeos, a passion he has had since his youth.

MAY PLAYED running back at Idaho from 1991-94 and is the school’s second all-time leading rusher behind Joel Thomas with 3,748 yards. He averaged 113.6 yards per game rushing, which is the top mark in UI history by more than 16 yards. He has a school-best 22 games with at least 100 yards rushing and his 689 carries is second on UI’s all-time list.

May is just one of seven Vandals to ever earn at least three first-team all-conference selections. He led the Vandals in rushing his final three seasons, including 1,370 yards as a senior, which ranks second on UII’s all-time list. As a junior, he rushed for 1,267 yards, which ranks fourth, while his sophomore total of 1,111 yards ranks 12th in UI history.

Following his outstanding career as a Vandal, May went undrafted but signed a free-agent contract with the New York Jets. He played in five games his rookie season with one start, and then was in eight games the following season.

After his NFL career ended, he became involved with personal training and in 1998, he played in the semi-pro league for the Puget Sound Jets. He then worked a year in the car business before he entered the mortgage business in 2001, where he still works today in Tacoma. May has 13-year-old twins Isaiah and Isabel and has been involved in a long-term relationship with Dimi Hartman, and her three children Dylan, Connor and Austin. In his spare time, May still enjoys working, out, spending time with family and friends, and traveling.

ALMQUIST, WHOSE nickname is Swede, taught for 44 years and coached at the high school level for 39 years in northern and southern Idaho as well as Montana.

Almquist graduated from Mullan High in 1960 where he won the school’s Outstanding Athlete Award as a senior. He walked on as a freshman on the University of Idaho football team and started all three freshmen games (at the time, freshmen could not participate at the varsity level). He earned a varsity letter as a sophomore playing offensive guard and defensive tackle, and he started his final two seasons at both positions under coach Dee Andros. In his senior year, he was the only UI player to earn All-Coast honors, and the team went 5-4 for its first winning record since 1938. He was selected in the 11th round of the NFL draft by San Francisco, but was later released. He was then picked up by Saskatchewan in the middle of the CFL season where he played for a year. He then returned to UI to finish his education.

Almquist started his coaching career as an assistant coach in football, basketball and golf in 1966 at Wallace High, and then became assistant football and track coach at Twin Falls High. In 1975, he became head coach for the Bruins and spent three years there. He then moved to Missoula and was a 7-8th grade basketball coach for two seasons before he became head football coach at Big Sky High, which opened that year in 1980. He was head coach for three season and was assistant girls’ track coach for 30 years where he had numerous conference and state champions.

Among his lifetime honors, Almquist was named by the Shoshone News-Press as one of the Silver Valley’s Legend of Sports.

Almquist and his wife Mary Gay, have been married for 48 years and they have two children, Guy and Katie, and eight grandchildren. Coaching runs in the family as between Almquist, his wife, his children and their spouses, five of the six have or are in the education field and three have been head coaches at the high school level. Among Almquist’s many hobbies are golf, racquetball, hunting, fishing, reloading, target shooting, horseback riding in the mountains, and following his children and grandchildren.

SHELT GRADUATED from Kellogg High in 1963 where he was a standout in both football and track. As a halfback in football, he scored 16 touchdowns his junior year and broke the school record with 19 touchdowns as a senior. In track he specialized in the hurdles where he placed second at state twice. He also played basketball for a year, and was an outstanding baseball player and received an offer to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates Class A farm team in Lewiston.

He attended the University of Idaho on a football scholarship where he played running back on the freshman team, and was a reserve running back his sophomore season. He moved to defense as a junior where he played cornerback. He moved to rover linebacker at a senior.

Following college, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army and he spent 13 months in Korea as a tank platoon leader during the Vietnam War. After the war, he eventually moved to Kennewick where he became active in coaching youth baseball teams. He also was involved with the Kennewick Booster Club.

Shelt and his wife Janyce have four children, including Jason Shelt, who is the second all-time leading tackler in UI history.

Former Seattle Seahawks great Jim Zorn will be the featured speaker at the banquet.

Tickets for the banquet can be purchased online at https://idahoathletichalloffame.org/banquet/ or at the Best Western Plus Coeur d’Alene Inn. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for children age 12 and under.

For more information on the event or the Idaho Hall of Fame, contact board chair Rick Rasmussen at rrasmussen@nshinc.com or (208) 699-7495.