2026 Chesterton Athletics Hall of Fame: John (Class of 1968), Melissa (’90), Tim (’92), Amanda (’95) and Annie (2000) all loved competing in athletics so much that sports remain a big part of their lives and career

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Contrary to what many believe, it’s not the color red that makes bulls range. In fact, they are red-green colorblind. In reality, the snapping of the flag and commotion of the crowd trigger the bulls’ survival instincts. The choice of red for the flag is an attempt to hide the bull’s blood from the audience.
And then there is Chesterton’s Ray family, which has no problem identifying colors.
Based on the clutch performances of the Rays throughout the past six decades against their chief rival, Valparaiso, it appears green is the color that spikes their adrenaline.
“I agree with that,” said Annie, the youngest of John and Glenda's four children. “I don’t know why it is that way, but I agree 100%.”
Father John (Class of 1968), daughters Melissa (’90), Amanda (’95), Annie (2000) and son Tim (’92) are getting inducted into the 2026 Chesterton Athletics Hall of Fame and will be honored with the rest of the class at tonight’s banquet at Sand Creek.
Based on their clutch performances throughout the past six decades against Valparaiso, it appears green is the color that spikes their adrenaline.
“I agree with that,” Annie said. “I don’t know why that is, but I agree 100%.”
Obviously, to gain entry in the Hall of Fame requires success against more than one school, but there does appear to be something about Valparaiso that brings out the best in the Rays.
John Ray, a 6-foot-3 tight end on offense, had five interceptions in a football game against Gary Edison in the fall of 1967, but when looking back on his senior year, he becomes far more animated discussing the sectional basketball final vs. Valpo later, a story that can’t be told until remembering the painful regular season game at the Vikings’ home court, Boucher Gym.
“We’re one point down, the ball went out of bounds, we got it, and our substitute guard gets the ball, calls timeout. We didn’t have any timeouts left,” John remembered. “They made one free throw. We got the rebound, still had about three seconds left. Our point guard missed a half-court shot. We were devastated, and that was the loudest gym I’d ever been in. My ears were hurting.”
Fast forward to the sectional final at Chesterton’s Goldsborough Gymnasium, and again it’s late in a close game.
“Paul Seelig, the Valpo guard was coming down with the ball and Bert Edquist and I were kind of quasi-guarding him because there were only a few seconds left and we were up by one point,” John said, reliving the moment. “When we backed off, he dribbled off his foot and Bert got the ball. ‘I’m yelling at him; ‘Don’t throw it! Don’t throw it! Hold it!’ and he threw it down court to Paul Vale and he lays it up and in, gets fouled, and we win by four points (64-60). Goldsborough was packed and our cheering section was humongous and they all went nuts. When the final buzzer went off, they crashed the floor, put us up on their shoulders, carried us to the nets, so we cut the nets down before we did anything. It was awesome.”
Chesterton ended a 13-year drought with its second sectional title in school history. John scored 15 points, second only to Greg Tavernier’s 20 points for the Trojans that night. Tavernier and Ray combined for 16 of the Trojans’ 27 second-quarter points.
“That’s what was neat about them winning it this year,” Ray said of Coach Marc Urban’s fourth sectional title. “It was only the second time Chesterton won sectionals at home. Us and this year.”
Grandpa buried the lead to that story. It was his grandson, current assistant coach Tim’s son, Tobias (TJ), who carried the team to victory with 24 points, including 5 3-pointers, four in the first half. More proof that the green gene gets passed down the generations.
All the Rays brought intensity to the floor. The only thing soft about them was their shooting touch.
Annie, had a knack for bringing her best against Valpo, and doing it by taming an all-time Valparaiso great, Jeanette Gray, an Indiana All-Star.
“Each time I guarded her, she never scored over 10 points, and that was our goal,” Annie said.
Said Amanda: “Valpo was the team. If you could beat Valpo, you could beat anybody. That was the team and you would walk in there and there was trash-talking. It was something. And they had great programs. They were so tough to beat in anything.”
But Chesterton beat the Vikings in the 1994 sectional final and Amanda’s green gene helped her to score 17 points. Katey Parsons, a fellow member of this Hall of Fame class, teamed with Amanda then and on an AAU team named “Church Ladies,” named after Dana Carvey’s Saturday Night Live skit.
Evidence suggests the gene can even temporarily rub off on players from a Coach Ray, of which there have been many, including John, who coached his daughters in AAU on the Lady Lakers.
Tim’s 2022 cross country team couldn’t beat the distance runners in green during the regular season or the first two rounds of the postseason, finishing second and third, with Valpo winning sectional and regional titles. Yet, Chesterton topped the Vikings in the semi-state and again at state, where the Trojans were ninth to Valparaiso’s 13th.
But again, the Rays have more than memorable moments vs. their chief rival about which to boast. John was All-Calumet Conference in football, basketball and baseball. He was recruited to play football and basketball at Valparaiso University and left after football season sophomore year to start a career in the steel mill.
All four children were All-DAC in at least one sport.
Tim earned a roster spot as a basketball walk-on in his fourth and fifth years at Ball State, and in high school was a better soccer player (two-time All-DAC) as a scoring defender than a basketball player, where he played point guard.
Baseball never was Tim’s thing.
Friends talked him into signing up for soccer in third or fourth grade.
“They knew how I was,” Tim said of his parents. “I had a hard time playing baseball because it’s a failure game, so you strike out. I didn’t know how to deal with that. I’ll never forget, my parents said, ‘This is going to be your first soccer game ever. You never played before. Don’t get mad if you don’t score.’”
He scored five goals in his first game. He didn’t have any trouble dealing with that. Tim didn’t play football, so we’ll never know if he would have had five interceptions in one game, but he did have five goals in his first soccer game.
As a freshman, when soccer was a spring sport at Chesterton, Tim played baseball, found it boring, and switched to soccer for his final three seasons.
Melissa, better known as Missy, was a four-year letter winner in basketball and track, where she did the high jump, hurdles and 4x400 relay, running on a relay that set the school record at the regional meet.
“Mr. Miller at the high school, old Mr. Miller was our Biology teacher, and he used to constantly tease my dad and me that our right arm was longer than our left arm because we shot the ball so much,” Missy said.
She was recruited to play basketball at University at Indianapolis but decided it was time to retire from playing after high school.
Amanda earned 12 varsity letters, achieving all-conference honors in volleyball, basketball and track.
In volleyball, she recalled that she set a school record for most consecutive serves without an error, 64 to the best of her recollection, and in single-season serve percentage (99.8%, she thinks).
“That was back in the day when it was all about getting it over,” she said. “They didn’t do these cool jump serves and all that jazz they do today.”
Annie didn’t let two ACL surgeries, one in the summer after eighth grade, the next as a sophomore, prevent her from becoming an all-conference performer as a point guard.
She loved the sport so much that she used to write letters to her high school basketball idol, Stephanie White, “and she wrote me back every time.” She would watch her in person as sister Amanda’s team gave Seeger all it could handle before losing a close one at semi-state.
It’s not that Annie didn’t like other sports, it’s just that her time was taken up with rehabilitation from knee surgeries.
“I wanted to focus on basketball, so then I became a student athletic trainer,” Annie said. “So that helped to keep me involved in the other sports.”
Yet, none of those achievements of his children make John puff his chest the way something else about his children does.
“What I’m really pleased with too is how my kids have helped their communities no matter where they’re at,” John said.
His comments on each child giving back:
“Amanda’s down in Kokomo and she got involved in coaching middle school. She coached some AAU, and she’s involved with the community in other ways.”
On Missy: “She’s at South Central. She coached at Warsaw, she coached at Lowell. She did some coaching at South Central until she got moved up to dean of students, and now she’s principal.”
On Tim: “Tim coached cross country and track and played soccer and I don’t know anything about those sports, and he still coaches basketball (as an assistant to Urban).”
On Annie: “She took up cross country and basketball at Washington Township, so they’re very involved in their communities and activities.”
What was it that John and Glenda did right as sports parents for the children to all want to remain involved in it well past their playing days?
“I handled the physical aspect of athletics and she was more involved with the mental aspect of it, keeping things in perspective,” John said. “She reeled me in a couple of times. She was much more mentally prepared with the athletics with the kids than I was. She made sure they had fun.”
And Dad made sure they all had a “gooseneck followthrough” to give the basketball proper rotation.
Tim said his mother still polices keeping sports in its proper place with her grandchildren. Glenda, take a bow for your grandchildren staying humble to enable them to develop well enough to play college sports. Steve (LaPorte athletic director) and Missy Santana’s two daughters played volleyball in college. Tim’s son recently committed to play basketball at nearby Purdue Northwest, an NCAA Division II Purdue Northwest.
Audrey Koetter, Amanda's daughter, made it to state in golf for (Kokomo) Northwestern High School and continued to play at Kentucky Wesleyan University, and at Northwestern played basketball for the state runner-up in 2020 and is the head golf coach at Central Harden High School in Kentucky. Her younger sister, Halie, was a standout volleyball and basketball player in high school.
One of Annie’s children, Amanda said, received collegiate offers to throw shot put and discus at state.
So, the children of the parents who provided the right soil for loving sports inherited that parenting gift as well.
Missy summed up the lessons her parents planted that led to success in athletics succinctly: “Work ethic and accountability. You have to have the work ethic and drive and you have to be accountable. So if you’re not seeing the results that you want, well, that’s on you. You’re not going to put the blame on other people.”
Added Amanda: “Our parents taught us how to have fun. Not only to have fun but whatever you do, whether it was athletics or your education, be the best you were. They taught us that as long as you can go home at the end of the day and be happy with the work that you put in, you’ve already succeeded. So I think with that mindset we all became successful in Chesterton athletics along with life after high school.”
Encouraging their daughters to play pickup games outside and play against boys also helped their development.
“Tim and I would go to the basketball courts at the old Chesterton High School and we would play pickup games and that was the only place that you would find Tim,” Amanda said. “And he was so nice he would pick me on his teams.”
Based on Tim's intense desire to win, Amanda might not have realized it, but Tim probably picked his sister for his team because she was a better option than the available boys.
John’s upbringing was much the same. His father, Joe, managed his State Park Little League team. He and the neighborhood sports nuts from 10th Street, John Mabin, Joe Haklin (later an Academic All-American at Wabash) and the great Donna Lorenz were always playing wiffle ball or basketball or countless other sports, according to Mabin and Ray.
“Donna could have played baseball, she could have played basketball on the guys’ team,” John Ray said. “She was that good. She really was.”
Don't doubt him. Being surrounded by talented athletes his entire life, he is an authority on the subject.