Tillman Among Five Inducted Into San Pedro Sportswalk

Among the new inductees to San Pedro’s Sportswalk to the Waterfront, one once leveled an opponent with a punch during a game of flag football and another gave a friend a matching set of black eyes while boxing.

Pat Tillman Sr., whose son Pat was inducted posthumously Thursday morning, along with four others, said his son would “be absolutely pleased” to join such a tenacious bunch.

“I’m not too sure what salt of the earth stands for, but those guys just seemed to be good folks,” Tillman said after speaking briefly during the two-hour ceremony along Sixth Street in downtown San Pedro. “If Pat’s inducted with the likes of them, that says a lot for Pat.”

The inductions were the first since 1998, when the project known upon its inception in 1978 as the San Pedro Sportswalk was discontinued. A group of former athletes from the city revived the tradition this year under a new name in hopes that it could become the centerpiece of plans to revitalize San Pedro’s waterfront with a promenade.

Bob Bradarich, co-chairman of the Sportswalk, which honors locally and nationally renowned athletes, said the first phase of the promenade should be completed in time to hold next year’s ceremony on the waterfront on Seventh Street.

Tillman said he had been reluctant to travel from his home in San Jose in recent months because he was still mourning the loss of his son, the Arizona Cardinal turned Army Ranger who was killed in combat in April in Afghanistan.

But Tillman, whose son Richard also attended the ceremony, said it was important for people to have role models, “and I frankly think my son was a very positive role model. He accomplished a lot in his short 27 years.”

Pat Tillman had left behind a promising NFL career to join the Army after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The other inductees, honored with bronze plaques cemented into a sidewalk, were:

* John Brodie, the NFL’s player of the year in 1970 who spent his 17-year career with the San Francisco 49ers as one of the league’s most prolific quarterbacks.

* Andy Heilman, a local middleweight who rose as high as No. 3 in the world in the 1960s and was remembered Thursday as the only boxer to give friend Joey Orbillo two black eyes.

* Jim Harryman, a San Pedro longshoreman once known as “King of the Street Fighters” for his brutish nature, once pummeling former San Diego Charger defensive end Bob Petrich during what was supposed to be a friendly game of football at San Pedro’s Daniels Field.

* Marion Ancich, the football coach at Santa Fe Springs St. Paul High who received the Trani Award in recognition of his commitment to local sports programs. Ancich has won 335 games in 28 seasons while sending scores of former players and assistant coaches into the college and pro coaching ranks.

“You look at all these incredibly gifted athletes and you just don’t feel in place there,” Ancich said. “I feel greatly honored. To be up there with somebody like Pat Tillman’s dad ... that was an emotional thing for me, thinking of all the things he gave to the country. I greatly appreciated it.”