The Santa Barbara City College Athletics Department has announced its 2023 class for the SBCC Vaqueros Hall of Fame: Faha Banks, Rusty Fairly and Ed Gover.
The college will honor the recipients along with members from the Class of 2020 on June 16 at the SBCC Sports Pavilion Patio.
The Hall of Fame was established in 2019, and it recognizes former Vaqueros who have had a lasting impact on the culture of excellence at SBCC.
As a freshman at SBCC in 1989-90, Banks was a stellar basketball athlete. She averaged 12.5 points per game and set a single game record for most threes in a game. She was an All Western State Conference selection and earned a full scholarship to division two Chapman University.
Banks returned to SBCC in 1991-92, improving her scoring average to 18.2 points per game. She earned WSC All-Conference as well as All-State honors where she participated in the California Community College Women’s Basketball Coaches Association All-Star game.
Fairly came to Santa Barbara in 1961 as backfield baseball coach at UCSB, where he coached for four years before SBCC hired him as head baseball coach and assistant on the football staff. Fairly’s baseball teams won a total of 255 games, highlighted by a conference championship in 1972. When he retired as coach, Fairly continued to serve SBCC as chair of its Health, Physical Education and Athletics Division until 1986.
Gover had a successful 28-year career with the Vaqueros that spanned 1991-2019. He compiled a 378-216 record (.636) and secured 11 WSC North Division conference titles. He guided the Vaqueros to a state runner-up finish in 1999 and fifth place in the state in 2013 and 2015. Gover was a six-time WSC North Coach of the Year and the Southern California Coach of the Year in 2015.
If you would like to attend the event, tickets are $50 and available online at sbccvaqueros.com/Tickets/HomeTown.
email: abahnsen@newspress.com
