MILWAUKEE – Three former Milwaukee student-athletes and a standout coach will be inducted into the Bud K. Haidet Milwaukee Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday, Nov. 9. The members of the Class of 2018 includes Ron Bruce (football), Jak Kraus (baseball) and Shelby Spaciel (Schaal) (track & field), as well as Pete Corfeld (track & field/cross country coach). Derek Visocky, a 1990 graduate of UWM who devoted a significant amount of time and effort into Milwaukee's move to NCAA DI status as a student, will also be recognized with the Panther Award of Distinction.
 
Bruce was a four-year letterwinner on the Milwaukee football team from 1966 through 1969 under head coach Wally Dreyer. Bruce was the team co-captain in 1969, helping the squad reach its highest victory total in his time as a Panther. Just prior to his arrival at Milwaukee, he was a member of the 1965 Wauwatosa West Football Team that went undefeated and was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 2015.
 
Following his collegiate career, Bruce spent four seasons with the semi-pro West Allis Spartans, winning the Central States Football League championship in 1972. A longtime physical education teacher at Glen Hills Middle School, Bruce coached track for 17 years and basketball for nearly a decade. The school swimming pool at Glen Hills was named in his honor upon his retirement in 2003.
 
Kraus played baseball for the Panthers in the early 1990's and set the bar for many of the program's career records. He batted .350 in 185 games overall, driving in 127 runs and hitting 26 home runs. His home run total still stands fourth all-time, while his 99 career walks remain tied at the top of the charts. He went on to bat .336 in four seasons in the Milwaukee Brewers farm system.
 
Kraus led the team with a .374 batting average as a sophomore, earning Second-Team All-Midwestern Collegiate Conference honors after slugging .660 and driving in 37 runs, recording 17 doubles and seven home runs.
 
The next season he again led the way at the plate for the Panthers with a .357 average, repeating as a second-team all-league member with a .636 slugging percentage, 46 runs scored, 32 RBI and nine home runs.
 
As a senior, Kraus batted .364 and earned First-Team MCC status after a career-best 10 home runs and 48 runs batted in. He added a .702 slugging percentage and 15 doubles.
 
A member of the Milwaukee Baseball 20^th-Anniversary Team, Kraus graduated with program career records in average (.350), games (180), hits (178), runs (137), RBI (127), home runs (26), doubles (43), triples (8), total bases (315) and walks (99). He also set single-season records for hits, runs, doubles, slugging percentage and walks.
 
Spaciel (né Shelby Schaal) was one of the greatest multi-event athletes in Horizon League history. A four-year letterwinner for the women's track & field team from 2008-13, she helped the Panthers earn Horizon League Indoor Championships in 2009, 2010 and 2012, as well as Outdoor titles in 2010 and 2011. She was also a member of four Indoor or Outdoor teams that finished Horizon League Runner-Up.

After her first two years on campus, Schaal broke through in a big way during her outdoor sophomore season. She brought home her first individual league title by topping the heptathlon field, while also helping MKE to a team title by scoring in the javelin (taking third), high jump (fifth) and 100m hurdles (sixth).

In 2012, Schaal made her name known nationally. After winning her first league pentathlon crown with a Horizon League record score of 3,756 points, Schaal turned her attention to the outdoor season. The Waterford, Wis., native wasted no time, breaking the school heptathlon record her first time out with a score of 5,063 points. That score also was good enough to bring home a gold medal at the storied Kansas Relays. She finished the season with yet another league title in the heptathlon, setting up for a special senior season.

Schaal kicked off her final season by repeating as league champ in the heptathlon. Then, in outdoor, she broke her own school heptathlon record in the very first meet of the season in Saint Louis with a score of 5,083 points – setting the bar high with a score that would rank among the national leaders all season long. One week later, she broke the school's javelin record with a throw of 43.98m (144-3) at Tennessee's Sea Ray Relays. It all culminated at Schaal's final conference meet, where she won her third heptathlon title while shattering the league record in the process. She also brought home a league title in javelin and was named the Horizon League Outstanding Field Performer after her historic season.

In addition to her achievements as an athlete, Schaal also excelled in the classroom. She was named to the Horizon League All-Academic Team and was also a regular member of the Horizon League Academic Honor Roll.
 
Corfeld retired from his post as the Milwaukee men's and women's track & field and cross country coach this past spring after nearly 30 years and an unprecedented amount of success. He closed out his remarkable career with 51 total conference championships, being named league coach of the year an incredible 51 times.

A graduate of UWM in 1986, Corfeld was named head coach at Milwaukee in August of 1989. Despite joining an institution that was transitioning to the Division-I level one year after taking the job, he started the winning early on, coaching the women's cross country team to Mid-Continent Conference title in the fall of 1992. One year later, the Panthers swept the men's and women's cross country titles and it was obvious the Panthers had found a winner in Corfeld.

With Milwaukee's move to the Horizon League in 1994, the Panthers quickly found the winning formula in track & field. The first championship came on the men's side with an indoor crown in 1997. One year later, the first year the conference held both indoor and outdoor championships, MKE claimed three of the four titles overall.

Corfeld established a winning tradition that would never be broken, bringing home a total of 48 Horizon League Track & Field Championships. In fact, he swept all four titles (men's and women's, indoor and outdoor) four times in his career, most recently in 2011.

Further demonstrating the level of consistent dominance, Corfeld's teams brought home first or second-place team trophies at the conference championships a whopping 75 times out of a combined 90 league meets.

In his 29 years on Milwaukee's Eastside, Corfeld completely rewrote the record books, with his student-athletes breaking 88 of the program's top marks countless times over that span. Additionally, 20 of the Horizon League's records are currently held by Milwaukee student-athletes; all of which were coached by Corfeld.

His success has certainly carried over to the next level. Milwaukee has produced 15 All-Americans under Corfeld's coaching, including five in the last three years. The Panthers also have typically sent a large contingent to the NCAA Regional Championships each year, traditionally finishing higher than their seeding.

Corfeld's student-athletes have also gone on to be named the Horizon League Athlete of the Year 17 times and the prestigious Horizon League Coleman Medal of Honor recipient five times.

He has also coached Milwaukee to a staggering 511 Horizon League event titles.

Many of his former student-athletes have gone on to follow in his footsteps, with over 30 former Panthers passing along the knowledge they learned from Corfeld at both the high school and collegiate levels across the country, many of whom are still coaching to this day.
 
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The Milwaukee Athletics Hall of Fame is named in honor of Bud K. Haidet, the retired MKE Director of Athletics who made many contributions to Panther athletics during his 21 years in charge of the department.
 
Haidet was officially inducted into the hall and learned of the naming honor in the spring of 2009, just prior to his official retirement from the University. After being hired in 1988, Haidet led Milwaukee to unprecedented athletic and academic heights. He guided the program from NAIA status back to NCAA Division I competition and then established MKE as a powerhouse in the Horizon League.
 
Along the way, Haidet helped Milwaukee Athletics build a national reputation, highlighted by a men's basketball run to the Sweet 16 in 2005. The Panthers won the Horizon League's McCafferty Trophy five times under Haidet, while with him in charge UWM teams won 85 league regular season and tournament championship titles, while Panther coaches claimed 67 league coach of the year honors.
 
MKE teams also excelled on the national stage. Panther squads made 27 NCAA Tournament appearances while Haidet was the AD, while individual athletes appeared in the track and field national championships seven times.