Athletic Hall of Fame 2006 Inductees

Roy L. Braley Jr., 1950

1925-2006

Roy Braley attended high school in Horton (Kansas), where he participated in football, basketball and track. He lettered in all three sports for two years. As a senior, he was a member of the league championship football team and he was voted team captain.

Upon graduation in 1943 he was drafted into the U.S. Navy where he was trained as a corpsman. He spent two years overseas on the island of Tinian in a base hospital. Following the war he was honorably discharged in 1946.

He enrolled the following fall at Baker where he went on to a distinguished career lettering in football all four years and in baseball both his junior and senior years. In football he was a four-year starter on offense at the fullback position and on defense at outside linebacker. During his senior year he called signals on the field for the defense and was a key member of the team that was conference champs of 1949. In addition to being a four-time letterman in football, he was named to the all-conference teams as a sophomore, junior and senior. He was a member of the Letterman’s Club and served as vice president his senior year.

Following graduation from Baker in 1950 he began a career in teaching and coaching at the high school level in Kansas. He served at Westphalia High School for three years, Cherokee High School for one year and finally at De Soto, where he spent 31 years. He coached football, basketball and track at all the schools he served, including a period of 20 years at De Soto. He retired from teaching in 1987 and spent many happy days in pursuit of his love of the game of golf near his home in De Soto. He was a member of the De Soto United Methodist Church and the De Soto Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #6654.

He passed away just weeks before his induction to the Baker University Athletic Hall of Fame on July 31, 2006. He is survived by his widow, Charlene, and by their daughter, Karen, ’83, and son, Eric.

Roy Doleshal, 1951

Roy Doleshal attended high school at Wyandotte in Kansas City, Kansas, where he lettered in football and played baseball. He also played baseball throughout the city and was a member of a team in the Ban Johnson League. Prior to graduating he enlisted in the Marine Corps and spent one year in the South Pacific on an aircraft carrier near the end of World War II. Upon being honorably discharged, he returned home to graduate from Wyandotte in 1946.

He worked for a year before enrolling at Baker, where he immediately became a four-year starter in baseball, his true athletic love. He lettered all four years while playing for coaches Jack Austin and Russ Davee. He also played and lettered on the golf team and was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

Following graduation he began a teaching and coaching career before being called for reenlistment in the Marine Corps. He attended officer school, was commissioned and served in the Korean War as a Platoon Commander and Legal Officer. He remained active in the Marine Corps reserves for several years retiring as a Lt. Colonel in 1970.

He maintained his association with baseball throughout his early-mid life and pitched, coached and umpired in numerous recreational and semipro leagues near his home.

He had a distinguished 35-year career in business with The Travelers Real Estate Division, where he held a number of management positions in Kansas City, Cleveland, Wichita and for his last five years with the company in Dallas where he served as vice president of the Southwest Division. He retired in 1989 and moved to Northwest Arkansas, where he could play competitive tennis and play golf year-round.

He lives in Bella Vista with his wife, Jean. He has two sons, David and Bradley, from a previous marriage.

Rick Quattrini, 1975

Rick Quattrini was recruited to Baker by Coach Jim Irick following an outstanding athletic career at Pascack Valley High School in New Jersey. As a senior he served as the football team captain, was selected to the all-county and all-state first team on defense.

At Baker he started all football games on defense. In his junior year he was selected a tri-captain, led the team in tackles and was voted the team’s MVP. In 1974 he suffered a season-ending injury but was allowed to red-shirt that year. He returned in 1975 and was selected team captain, led the team in tackles and was once again voted the team’s most valuable player. As a senior he was selected to the first-team all-conference team and first-team All-District 10 and was named in 1975 one of the outstanding college athletes of America. On campus he was additionally an active member and officer in the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity.

Following graduation he studied Italian at the University of Genoa and later attended the University of Petroleum and Minerals at Daharan, Saudi Arabia.

Through his business career he has been involved in a wide range of entrepreneurial businesses, including the development of a concept model for luxury floating restaurants that led him to form a partnership that launched five 400-passenger vessels in New York. For his efforts he was awarded Nations Restaurant News top industry award for design and concept. Later he formed other businesses and partnerships that directed the design, construction and retrofitting of multiple inland excursion vessels, built luxury homes on the Hudson River waterfront, and most recently headed up the acquisition of a hotel room brokerage firm that has since become the largest such service provider in North America.

He is involved in a wide range of business related boards and is active in civic and philanthropic activities. He is married to the former Linda Ann Donovan and together they have four children, Justin, Derek, Christie Anna and Gianna Maria. The Quattrinis currently reside in Tenafly, New Jersey.

Dawn Henderson Grosdidier, 1990

Dawn graduated in 1986 from Eudora (Kansas) High School following a distinguished academic, social and athletic career. In addition to maintaining honor roll status and perfect attendance for years, she participated in cross country, track and basketball. She lettered in each of these sports every year, was designated for all-league honors in all three sports and was the MVP in basketball for three years.

After having received scholarship offers from 22 colleges, Dawn enrolled at Baker where she graduated four years later with a Bachelor of Science in business and minors in accounting and coaching. She earned four varsity letters in basketball, three in track and two in cross country. In basketball she was the MVP in both 1989 and 1990, was the team captain her senior year and was selected all-conference in her junior and senior years. She had a career high of 34 points and established a school record with 1,538 points in her career — a record that stood for 11 years.

In track, she participated on the sprint medley team that broke a school record in 1988 at the District 10 meet at Emporia State. She also set school records in the 400-meter hurdles, the 800-meter run and as a team member on the 1600-meter relay. She was all-conference in 1989 on the women’s 4x800-meter relay team.

On campus she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority and was active in a wide range of campus activities and student work programs.

Following graduation she began her career as the treasurer of the Eudora School District before moving on to work as an accounting coordinator and budget analyst in the Shawnee Mission School District. For the past eight years she has been with the Blue Valley Recreation Commission and has served as its director since 2002. She is a member of numerous professional associations and professional boards while at the same time volunteering countless hours to coaching a variety of youth league basketball teams. She earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Baker in 1994.

Dawn is married to Christopher Allen Grosdidier and together they have two children, Claire Elaine and Zachary Isaac. The Grosdidiers reside in Lenexa, Kansas.