Go after the brass ring, Shannon Briggs said quoting her mother Deborah to a gym full students at her old high school Friday,
The 31-year-old golf coach and player from Fonthill is one of four inducted into the Notre Dame College School Wall of Fame.
Others added to the list of athletes on the Dillon Hall wall are CFL player Mark Moroz, lacrosse player Nick Nero and the late basketball coach Ralph Nero.
Briggs is best known for golf, which she coaches at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. However, at Notre Dame, she also played hockey, volleyball and badminton leading teams to championships including the provincial golf title. Notre Dame teacher and longtime Fonthill friend Kristen Dean outlined Briggs career including her hockey days with the Pelham Minor Hockey Association and goaltending in lacrosse.
Briggs told the students they all have talent, ability, dreams and passions but hard work in necessary to develop them.
“Don’t be afraid to make it your focus in your every waking moment,” she said. “And have fun doing it.”
In an interview, Briggs said she advises students she coaches to work hard “that is huge.” But she stresses they keep a balanced life.
Briggs said she fondly remembers her time at Notre Dame from which she graduated in 2001.
She was behind Mark Moroz, 33, who graduated in 1999 going on to play football at Wake Forest University and then won the Grey Cup with the Toronto Argonauts in 2004. He now coaches football at Christ School a private school in Arden, North Carolina. At Notre Dame, he also excelled in basketball.
“It is interesting that we are here today together,” she said about the connection.
She recalls looking up at the Wall of Fame list in the gym but never expected to be on it.
Briggs continues to play golf, which she started at Lookout Point Golf Club, and plans to be on the Canadian women’s pro golf tour next summer. After the ceremony, she left for a golf coaches’ conference in Las Vegas.
Notre Dame, revived the Wall of Fame, created in 1986, after a 10 year break. A committee of eight selected the latest additions.
Nick Nero, who graduated in 1984, used his field lacrosse skills to carry him from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Welland through Notre Dame to a Harvard University scholarship.
Today Nero, 49, is a bank vice-president in Acton, Mass. You can apply the lessons of teamwork learned on the field to running a business office, said the business administration graduate.
The late Ralph Nero, who died in 2008, coached at Notre Dame as well as at the Niagara University and Niagara College in a 50-year coaching career.
He had a Notre Dame basketball team in the 1980s that went undefeated in 77 consecutive games.
Welland lawyer Jeff Root, a player on Nero’s team and Wall of Famer, described Nero as a disciplinarian who taught his players to respect themselves and the teams they played.
“I was glad to be part of his life.”
While the Wall of Fame features athletes, Notre Dame teachers say it helps to inspire students at all levels because of values of hard work, dedication and persistence that goes into achievement.
