6 Members Added to Hall of Fame Class for 2023
Liberty Athletics Hall of Fame
Six new members will be inducted into the Liberty Athletics Hall of Fame during a special ceremony in September.
The Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023 includes representatives from football, men’s basketball, men’s track & field, women’s basketball, women’s swimming & diving and women’s tennis.
The six-member class, the 15th to be inducted into the Liberty Athletics Hall of Fame, will be honored during special ceremonies surrounding Liberty’s Hall of Fame Weekend football game against New Mexico State on Sept. 9 at Williams Stadium.
The six-member class includes Sarah [Wilkerson] Erps (women’s basketball), Jonita [Randolph] Joseph (women’s tennis), Jeff Meyer (head men’s basketball coach), Todd Pettyjohn (men’s track & field), Brye Ravettine (women’s swimming & diving) and Rupert Wright (football).
The Liberty Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held Friday, Sept. 8 at the Alumni Ballroom on the third floor of the Montview Student Union.
Additionally, the six-member class will receive special recognition during the New Mexico State football game the evening following the ceremony.
The Liberty Athletics Hall of Fame celebrates the best of the best, honoring those who helped shape the face of Liberty Athletics. The Hall of Fame’s now 80 members have each played a key role in helping Liberty grow from an NCCAA program in 1972 to its current status as a thriving NCAA Division I program.
Sarah (Wilkerson) Erps
Women’s Basketball: 1997-2000
Sarah (Wilkerson) Erps’ induction into the Liberty Athletics Hall of Fame completes the enshrinement of the trio of players who established the standard of excellence for the women’s basketball program.
Erps, along with her twin sister Sharon (Wilkerson) Emory, a 2019 inductee, and Elena [Kisseleva] Bengds, an inaugural class member in 2009, helped turn a fledgling women’s basketball program that was 5-22 prior to their arrival into a team that won four straight Big South titles during her career and made the first four of the program’s 17 trips to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Erps is one of four players in program history to earn all-conference honors all four years of their playing career and one of three Lady Flames to make four all-tournament team appearances. She still holds the program’s all-time record for career assists (526) and three-point shooting percentage (39.7) more than two decades following her playing days.
Known for her ability to find an open teammate and dish off the assist, Erps still found her own way to the basket to finish her career with 1,331 points scored, which ranks in the top 10 in program history. The native of Princeton, W.Va., also ranks inside the top 10 in career free throws (345), steals (271), minutes played (3,379) and three-point field goals (104).
Jonita (Randolph) Joseph
Women’s Tennis: 2004-07
Jonita (Randolph) Joseph’s arrival on campus and her stellar play on the court for four years helped turn an upstart team into a conference contending program year in and year out.
Joseph joined the program in 2004, three years following its inaugural season and with just eight total wins during its young history. Her immediate success earned her 2004 Big South Freshman of the Year honors and helped the Lady Flames finish the season with a 12-8 record.
Primarily playing her career as Liberty’s No. 1 singles player and part of the program’s No. 1 doubles tandem, Joseph finished her career with 61 singles wins, including a pair of 20-win seasons.
Joseph was the first player in program history to earn all-conference honors in singles three years of her career (2004, 2006, 2007) and was also the first three-time all-conference honoree in doubles (2004, 2006 and 2007) in program history. She was named to the Big South Women’s Tennis All-Decade Team (2000-09) in both singles and doubles, while earning All-Academic honors three times (2005, 2006 and 2007) and graduating from Liberty magna cum laude.
The native of Townville, S.C., capped off her career with a banner year as a senior. She posted a 19-3 record in singles play, becoming the program’s first-ever Big South Player of the Year in 2007.
Jeff Meyer
Men’s Basketball Coach: 1981-97
During his storied 16-year head coaching career, Jeff Meyer guided Liberty men’s basketball from the NAIA level to becoming Liberty Athletics’ premier team during its early years at the NCAA Division I level.
Meyer posted a 259-206 coaching record and is the all-time winningest coach in program history. He guided the Flames to three 20-win seasons, including a 23-9 mark during his second year when his team advanced to the “Elite 8”, finishing fifth at the 1983 NAIA National Tournament. During his final season at Liberty, the Flames also finished with a 23-9 record and were co-Big South regular season champions.
A three-time Coach of the Year, Meyer led Liberty to its first-ever Big South Basketball Championship in 1994. The Flames then made their first-ever appearance in the “Big Dance” where they pushed No. 1 seed North Carolina for a full 40 minutes in front of a nationally televised CBS audience.
Meyer recruited and coached some of the best talent to ever represent Liberty, including two conference Players of the Year, two All-Americans, 23 all-conference players and eight players who played professionally.
Following his Liberty career, Meyer served as an assistant coach at Winthrop, Butler, Missouri, Indiana and Michigan. During his 40-plus years of coaching, Meyer helped teams at six different programs to 16 NCAA Tournaments, including four appearances in the “Sweet 16”, three in the “Elite 8”, two in the “Final Four” and one national championship game. Meyer totaled a combined 794 college basketball wins.
Todd Pettyjohn
Men’s Track & Field: 1991-94
Todd Pettyjohn was Liberty’s second NCAA Division I track & field All-American and he was part of a team that established the Flames as one of the premier track & field programs in the country.
As a junior, Pettyjohn set a then NCAA meet record with a 17-0.75 decathlon pole vault clearance, propelling him to a ninth-place finish in the decathlon where he earned 1993 NCAA Division I Outdoor All-America honors.
Pettyjohn was a three-time IC4A champion (1993 outdoor decathlon and pole vault; 1994 indoor pole vault) and was the inaugural outdoor men’s pole vault champion for the Big South Conference in 1994. His individual event win pushed Liberty to its first-ever Big South Outdoor Track & Field team title, launching a run that has resulted in nearly 30 men’s outdoor track & field conference titles since.
A hometown hero and native of Lynchburg, Va., Pettyjohn is a two-time member of the Flames’ 100-Point Club. He led the team with 118.0 points in 1993 and finished second with 172.0 points as a senior in 1994.
Pettyjohn, who held the Liberty record in the outdoor men’s pole vault (17-6.5) for 20 years, would go on to serve as an assistant coach at Liberty from 2001-04 and three seasons as head coach at Charleston Southern (1999-2001), where he was named the 2001 Big South Indoor Track Coach of the Year.
Brye Ravettine
Women’s Swimming & Diving: 2011-14
Brye Ravettine’s level of excellence in and out of the pool set a standard for Liberty’s women’s swimming & diving program that will be chased for years to come.
After transferring to Liberty from Penn State, Ravettine captured a series of firsts in program history during her four years on the Mountain. She was Liberty’s first-ever Most Outstanding Female Swimmer of the CCSA Championship (2012), first Most Outstanding Newcomer of the CCSA Championship (2011) and first CCSA Swimmer of the Year (2012).
Ravettine was a driving force behind Liberty’s rapid success and led the Lady Flames to their first-ever Coastal Collegiate Sports Association title in 2014.
The native of Mahwah, N.J., also helped put Liberty on the national map when she became the Lady Flames’ first All-American (honorable mention), placing 13th in the 50 freestyle at the 2012 NCAA Championships. She was also a two-time CollegeSwimming.com Mid-Major All-American (2011 – honorable mention; 2012 – first team).
Ravettine was the first Liberty swimmer to compete in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials (2012) and the first to score at a USA Swimming National Championship (2011 Winter Nationals). She also was a World Trails qualifier in 2013.
Ravettine was a two-time CSCAA Scholar All-American (2012, 2013), a four-time CCSA All-Academic honoree (2011-14) and graduated from Liberty magna cum laude. She was an eight-time CCSA podium finisher as an individual, including two CCSA individual event titles, and was named to the CCSA All-Decade team (2011-2020).
Rupert Wright
Football: 1977-80
Rupert Wright’s work in the trenches helped the offensive lineman garner national attention as an All-American, while pushing his team to unprecedented success on the gridiron.
Along with running back Kim Raynor, Wright was named to the 1978 Churchmen’s All-America first team, becoming Liberty’s first-ever first-team All-American. The four-year starter was voted Liberty’s top offensive lineman each year of his standout career. He was also named the Flames’ Offensive MVP as a sophomore in 1978.
Wright helped the Flames to their first nine-win season in 1979 (9-1-1). During the first half-century of the Flames’ football program, Liberty has won nine or more games only five times.
As a senior, Wright led the Flames in their first-ever matchup against NCAA FCS opponents, including a Homecoming victory over Morehead State in 1980.
The native of Scottsboro, Ala., blocked for the first two players in program history to play professionally (Liberty Athletics Hall of Famers tight end Steve Kearns [Class of 2016) and quarterback Glenn Inverso [Class of 2022]).
After graduating from Liberty, Wright coached football in Alabama and Texas for 33 years (1981-84 – Scottsboro High School/ Scottsboro, Ala.; 1985-99 – Flour Bluff High School/ Corpus Christi, Texas; 2000-14 – Richard King School/ Corpus Christi, Texas). He was inducted into the Jackson Country Sports Hall of Fame in 2021.
