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Erwin will finally get his spot in the Hall of Fame

LAUREL — A year after his selection was announced, Laurel native Steve Erwin will finally be inducted in to the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame.

His selection was announced in April, 2020, but the pandemic put the ceremony on hold.

It will now be held Sunday, April 18 at Lincoln East High School in Lincoln. Special guidelines from the Lincoln/Lancaster County Department of Health were put in place for the event.

Erwin inked his name into several records books and even more memory banks during a very memorable athletic career at Laurel High School.

His performances for the Laurel football and basketball teams were so prolific by the time he graduated in 1971, he was headed to the University of Nebraska to begin a Division-1 career on the hardwood.

That legacy only cemented his reputation as a stellar athlete.

His accomplishments are now being honored as they have landed him in the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame.

Erwin, 67, was an all-class all-state selection in football and basketball, playing quarterback for a Bear team that won the 1970 mythical state championship.

In basketball, he scored 1,427 points and collected 1,321 rebounds in his career.

At the University of Nebraska, he started 55 of 71 games over a three-year span.

“Being in a Hall of Fame must mean I am getting older,” Erwin said in a 2020 interview with the Advocate. “It kind of feels like that. I guess, I really do appreciate it. I am kind of like anybody else, I am humbled to turn around and be honored.”

During Erwin’s football playing days, the state didn’t have any playoffs. The Laurel team steamrolled through a tough schedule, though, to earn the attention of state-wide media and coaches.

“The Cornhusker Conference had an East and West (division) and who won those played in a championship game,” Erwin said. “We won that game against Scribner. We lost that game to Scribner my sophomore year. We had good kids, good coaches. We were a lot of farm kids who had the time to play. Farms were different at that time.”

Erwin was a 6-foot-5 signal caller who could sling it, but also ran with it in the option attack.

“We had some guys who could catch it, which was good,” Erwin said. “We had played together since seventh-grade, which helps.”

He was able to play varsity hoops all four years including his first two with his older brother, Tom.

Basketball at Laurel was a family affair in a sense, as his teams had cousins and close neighbors on the roster.

“When I was a junior, we made it to the finals to the Class B tournament and lost to Cozad,” Erwin said. “The team before, we only got beat once and that was in a district final. There were no wildcards those days, so we had to go home. That was a good team and we played against good teams and good competition which always helps.”

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