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UIS Announces First Athletics Hall Of Fame Class

Team photo
University of Illinois Springfield (UIS)
The SSU Prairie Stars soccer team of 1986-87 won the NAIA national championship, and went on to defeat powerful UCLA in the World Collegiate Championship. There they placed second in the world, after losing to the University College of Dublin, 1-0.

UIS has a new Athletics Hall of Fame and the first class of inductees have been announced.   The inaugural class includes longtime Athletic Director and soccer coach Aydin Gonulsen.  

His 1986 NAIA National Champion men's soccer team was also selected.  Gonulsen also had two other national titles at UIS.  

Other inductees include soccer player Elias Shehadi, tennis player Carla Mills and Harold Christofilakos, a friend of the Prairie Stars who was a charter member of the school's booster club.    

The induction ceremony will be this October, during the UIS Homecoming.  An advisory panel of campus and community members made the selections.

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