2023 Hall of Fame Inductees

Dr. Thomas TenHoeve - Administrator

Dr. Thomas TenHoeve, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., found a home at Butler County Community College in 1970. The second president of BC3 and his wife, Sue, prepared dinners at their home each year for the college’s student-athletes. Then President TenHoeveprepared a home for BC3’s athletics programs.

The college’s chief executive officer for 14 years was instrumental in raising funds for the construction of BC3’s Field House. Building I, as the 24,000-square-foot home athletics venue was known during its planning stage, would rise from what was the site of the ninth hole of the former Oak Hills Golf Course on BC3’s main campus in Butler Township.

In its first home game in what was BC3’s new $1.7 million Field House, the college’s men’s basketball team defeated Penn State-Shenango 79-63 on Jan. 24, 1977. President TenHoeve was in the crowd, as he was at other BC3 athletics competitions at home or away.

“We definitely gained some legitimacy in the eyes of the community and our competitors when the Field House was finally built,” former BC3 Athletics Director Charles W. Dunaway said at the time. “It also helped our athletic programs because we then didn’t have to hustle all over Butler trying to find someplace to practice.”

BC3’s men’s and women’s basketball teams had played home games at area high school gymnasiums and other venues, as did the college’s volleyball squad. BC3’s Field House has been home to 23 All-Americans in men’s basketball, women’s basketball and in volleyball. Nine pennants hang from its east wall, with 99 entries marking the years in which BC3 has won championships or reached national tournaments.

Bill Miller - Athlete, Coach

Bill Miller was handed the basketball from a referee at the free throw line 15 times on that February night in 1977 in Pittsburgh. Swish! through the net fell his first foul shot.

A second Swish! as Community College of Allegheny County players watched the point guard on the Butler County Community College men’s team. Miller was an all-Skyline Athletic Conference selection in his first year, and in his second – when BC3 finished 16-9 in 1978 and with the program’s first winning record.

A third and fourth Swish! Swish! 

Miller achieved academic honors before graduating from BC3 and from La Roche College. As an assistant men’s basketball coach at BC3 for 20 seasons he mentored players who earned six National Junior College Athletic Association Division III All-American awards, and won four Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference and three Pennsylvania Collegiate Athletic Association championships.

A fifth and sixth Swish! Swish! 

Miller has served as head coach of BC3’s golf team since 2003 and has guided players who have received five All-American awards, won eight WPCC crowns and one PCAA title, and qualified as teams five times for the national championship tournament. 

Swish! Swish!

The eight-time WPCC coach of the year has also instructed golfers who have finished first in WPCC or NJCAA Division III Region 20 tournaments 10 times. Swish! Swish!
His golf teams were 12-0 in fall 2022 and 11-0 in fall 2021. 

Swish! Swish!

Miller served BC3 for 41 years in administrative positions. 

Swish! Swish! Swish!

His single-game men’s basketball record of 15 foul shots without a miss stood at BC3 for nearly 38 years. It was broken in December 2015 by his son, Austin, who made 16.

Dick Hartung - Coach

Dick Hartung had just accomplished that which had never been in the history of Butler County Community College’s men’s and women’s basketball programs.

On a Saturday evening in February 2019, he had coached the Pioneers’ women’s team to a Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference championship victory. On the following Sunday afternoon, the Pioneers’ men’s team to a WPCC title-game win. Never before had BC3’s men’s and women’s basketball teams won WPCC crowns in the same season.

Said Joel Stutz, a guard on that men’s team: "I remember we were all celebrating and then after the celebration, coach said something like ‘I am going to go into my office.’ He took a couple of moments to himself."

Inside Hartung's office within BC3's Field House hanged team portraits of every men’s squad he'd coached to 314 victories over 28 completed seasons and every women’s squad to 88 over 11.
Those portraits included men’s teams that he coached to WPCC championships in 1991, 1994 and 2019; and to a Pennsylvania Collegiate Athletic Association crown in 1991.

Those pictures would include women’s teams that Hartung guided to WPCC championships in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2022; and to National Junior College Athletic Association Division III Region 20 titles in 2011, when the Pioneers also finished fifth nationally, and in 2016.

Those photographs included seven men’s NJCAA All-Americans and three women’s All-Americans, and the college’s all-time men’s and women’s leading scorers.
Hartung earned two bachelor’s degrees, a master’s degree from West Virginia University, played basketball professionally in Australia and was named WPCC coach of the year in multiple seasons.

He retired from BC3 in 2022, where he served as an assistant professor.