March 22, 2001

MILWAUKEE - UWM men's basketball coach Bo Ryan and his father, William "Butch" Ryan, will be inducted tonight into the Aston Sports Hall of Fame.

The hall of fame honors standouts in athletics from Deleware County, Pennsylvania.

"It certainly is special to be honored like this," Bo Ryan said. "But it's even more special to receive this honor with my dad."

Bo Ryan, a Chester, Pa., native, was a standout basketball player at Chester High School and at Wilkes College. He also coached the first Sun Valley High School team to reach the state tournament, earning Deleware County Coach of the Year honors in 1976.

Ryan then made his permanent move to Wisconsin, working for eight years as an assistant coach at the University of Wisconsin and 15 years as the head coach at UW-Platteville before taking the head coaching job at UWM in 1999.

At UWM, Ryan has led the Panthers to back-to-back 15-win seasons, the best two seasons for the school in eight years. Attendance at the Klotsche Center under Ryan has more than tripled, and the Panthers finished .500 in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference for the first time ever this past season.

Ryan's teams at UW-Platteville won four NCAA Division III National Championships. He was named National Association of Basketball Coaches Division III Coach of the Year four times, and his 82.2 winning percentage is tops among Division III coaches.

Butch Ryan has coached a variety of sports around Deleware County. In five decades of coaching baseball, football and basketball, he has won championships at the local, county, and state level.