Lafayette Announces 2010 Maroon Club Hall of Fame Class

Five individuals will be inducted into the Lafayette Maroon Club Hall of Fame as members of the Class of 2010. Basketball star Brian Ehlers ’00, multi-sport standout John Ernst ’25, women’s lacrosse player Allison Jones ’98, football player Bob Mahr ’83 and basketball player Michael Whitman ’82 will be inducted at the annual Maroon Club Hall of Fame Dinner on Friday, Nov. 19 at the College’s Marquis Hall.

For tickets to the event, please contact Jamie Hughes of the Maroon Club at (610) 330-5899.

Ehlers is one of two former men’s basketball players who earned an induction into the Hall of Fame this November. A four-year member of the team, Ehlers was a two-time Patriot League Player of the Year and was an All-League selection every season he donned the Maroon and White. He currently stands as the third all-time leading scorer in Leopard history with 1,836 points to his name, a mark that also places him fourth all-time in Patriot League history. Ehlers is also second all-time at Lafayette in career free throws (456) and ninth in assists (307).

An integral part of three Patriot League Tournament championship teams, two of which earned automatic berths to the NCAA Tournament, Ehlers earned 1998-99 Patriot League Tournament MVP honors. His 31 points against Navy in the 1998 championship game still stand as the most in a single championship game in league history.

Following graduation he spent time with the USBL’s Long Island Surf before playing with the Newcastle Eagles of the British Basketball League where Ehlers led the league in three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage. He also averaged 20 points per game while playing for the Budapest MAFC of the Hungarian A League.

Ehlers currently resides in his hometown of Bay Shore, N.Y. with his wife, Jamie, and two children Emily and Matthew. He has been working as a police officer for the past three years and led his precinct basketball squad to an undefeated season.

Ernst was a three-sport student-athlete during his days on College Hill. He was a member of the football, basketball and baseball squads and arguably his greatest successes came on the gridiron and baseball diamond.

Ernst was the Leopards’ starting quarterback for three seasons and Lafayette compiled an overall record of 20-5-2 during that span. Ernst also spent one season as the captain of the Lafayette freshman basketball squad. Following his collegiate career, he joined the Pottsville Maroons of the NFL from 1925-28 and led the 1925 team to the championship game in the league’s inaugural season. He also spent the 1929 season with the Boston Braves and later joined the Frankford Yellow Jackets, a team that later became the Philadelphia Eagles of today’s NFL.

For four seasons, Ernst was Lafayette’s first-string catcher and went on to play minor league baseball in the Eastern League. In 1929, he played for the Williamsport Grays where he met his wife, the former Dorothy Reese. In 1930, he was a member of the Wilkes-Barre Barons and played professional baseball until 1937.

Ernst, whose father John A. Ernst was a 1904 graduate of Lafayette as well as a former Leopard football player, spent the final 20-plus years of his life working as a supervisor and salesman at his father-in-law’s lumber company. In 1981, he was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.  Ernst passed away on March 8, 1968. He is survived by twin sons Jack B. Ernst and James B. Ernst and son Joseph R. Ernst. He has two grandsons, John B. Ernst ’11 and James J. Ernst, as well as a granddaughter, Pamela Rockafellow.

The class’s lone female inductee, Jones was a four-year member of both the field hockey and lacrosse teams. Her greatest successes came on the lacrosse field. Jones earned All-League status in 1995, 1996 and 1998 and was a member of the IWLCA All-Mid Atlantic Team from 1995-96. She also was an All-American in 1996 and received National USWLA honors in 1997.

Jones currently stands first all-time at Lafayette and second in the Patriot League in career saves (382) and second and third in single season saves with 253 in 1996 and 240 in 1995. She is also the program’s single-game record holder with 27 saves against Temple on April 13 1995. During her time on the lacrosse field, Lafayette won the Patriot league championship all four years with only one league loss during that span.

Jones, a PGA golf professional, resides in Port Saint Lucie, Fla., with her husband, Captain Scott Lepping.

Another former football player, Mahr was a three-year starter at cornerback and safety for the Leopards who finished his career with 178 tackles. He set a school record and led the nation with 10 interceptions in 1981, a Lafayette single season record that still stands. He tallied 17 interceptions during his four-year career and served as co-captain his senior season.

Mahr was listed in Legends of Lehigh-Lafayette as part of the “All-Time Team” from 1954-94. He was a key part in the resurgence of the Lafayette football program in the 1980s and a member of two nationally ranked Leopard teams. Following graduation, he earned a free agent tryout with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Montreal Concordes of the Canadian Football League (CFL).

Mahr currently works for Techni-Tool a distributor of specialty tools and test equipment, as a Business Unit Manager. Since graduation, he has been a volunteer coach for over 50 teams at every level from Recreation soccer up through College Football, including Special Olympics volleyball. Mahr is currently an assistant football coach at Westminster High School and the Founder of the Central Maryland Attitude Girl’s AAU Basketball program. He is married to Vicki Minturn’83, and the couple has three daughters: Anna (20), Beth (17) and Clare (12). They have resided in Finksburg, Md. for the past 21 years.

A 1,000-point scorer, Whitman amassed impressive numbers over his four-year career. He is the 21st all-time leading scorer in Lafayette history with 1,176 points. He averaged 10.6 ppg and tallied 382 career assists, fourth all-time at Lafayette. He also stands 13th in career steals (127), including a personal-high of 75 during the 1981-82 season, which remains the second-best single-season mark in Lafayette history. Whitman also played on the 1980 NIT team which lost to eventual NIT champion, Virginia.

As a senior, Whitman averaged 13.6 ppg and led the team in scoring in 20 of its 27 games, including a game-high 33 against Lehigh. He went on to earn team MVP honors that season and was named to East Coast Conference All-Conference Team. He also received the Charles L. Albert ’08 Trophy, awarded annually to an outstanding male and female senior student-athlete.

After graduation, Whitman was employed by Johnson & Johnson where he held numerous positions, including Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and helped develop innovative medical device technologies including the stent, used in vascular medicine. In 1999, Whitman founded his own company, Power Medical Interventions, which developed the world’s first computer mediated surgical stapling instruments. The company went public on NASDAQ in 2007 and was eventually sold to Covidien, Ltd.  Whitman then founded Micro Interventional Devices, Inc. in 2009, which is currently developing technologies aimed at reducing embolic stroke and repairing heart defects non-invasively. He is the named inventor on 65 patents in the medical device field.

Whitman is married to Linda Tedori Whitman ’83 and the couple has four children: Jessica (10), Jonathan (17), and two current Lafayette students Katherine ’11, Christopher ’12. Whitman and his wife co-chair the Cy Fleck Consistent Giving Society and both are active participants in the Marquis Parents Council. He holds a private pilot license and enjoys flying, coaching his sons and daughters in basketball, traveling with his family, playing guitar, golfing and skiing.