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Ray Gooden found his niche in the Evanston athletic program in a sport that was still growing in the late 1980s.

Now Gooden is a part of the most successful graduating class in school athletic history, joining seven other 1989 graduates as a member of the Hall of Fame. He was a pioneer in the sport of boys volleyball, leading the Wildkits to an unofficial state championship and earning Player of the Year recognition as a senior.

Now the successful women's volleyball head coach at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Gooden will be remembered by fellow classmates as the guy with the good hands. His prowess as a 5-foot-7 inch senior setter sparked the Wildkits to a 31-1 record, including a victory over Downers Grove South in the finals of the season-ending tournament at Niles West that crowned the unofficial state champ.

Gooden earned a spot on the varsity soccer squad at the end of his sophomore year and started as a junior and a senior. But volleyball was in his blood and it turned into a lifelong passion for Gooden, who has coached in both men's and women's programs at Thomas Moore --- where he was the youngest head coach in the country in 1994 ---, Northwestern, Lewis and Loyola, where as an assistant coach he was part of a Ramblers' women's program that twice qualified for the NCAA Tournament.

"Our biggest rival in high school was Downers South. Our senior year we played them at the Downers tourney and lost to them, but we got back at them at the end of the year. There was no regional, sectional or super-sectional like there is now, but the best teams all came to Niles West and we knew it was a big deal to win it. We had some really good players and Evanston won it the next year, too."

Gooden played three years at the Ohio State University, where he was all-Big Ten and the MVP of his club team, then moved into the coaching ranks. He's the winningest coach in NIU's volleyball history, architect of more than 300 wins, and his resume includes being named Mid-American Coach of the Year 5 times, 3 MAC championships and 2 NCAA Tournament appearances.

He has also worked extensively with the USA volleyball program, training and developing talent, and has served as a volleyball analyst for the Big Ten television network.

Ryan did not start playing volleyball until he was 16 years old. A year later, after graduating from high school, he continued his volleyball career. He played on two different university teams: Dominican University and Kendall College.

After years of study, Owens began his extensive international career abroad. He played his first season internationally in the Belgian league, in the ranks of the VBC Guibert team. For the next season, he played in the German Bundesliga, in the ranks of VC Markranstaedt, then moved on to the Danish Premier League, from where he continued his career in the Qatar Main Series and the Czech A1 League. In the 2005-06 season, Owens played in the Puerto Rico Super League, after which he moved to the Brazilian Super League.

In 2005, Owens was selected to the eighteen-player U.S. national team, which also included the 2007 and 2008 seasons. He fought hard for a place on the U.S. Olympic team, and was an alternate for The Beijing Games, a dream come true. Owens was also an alternate for the 2010 and 2013 seasons.

He never considered himself the best player on any volleyball team he played on. But after earning All-State recognition as a senior at Evanston in 2001, Andrew Pink enjoyed a fruitful college and professional career, including an appearance in the 2012 Olympic Games in London competing for Great Britain.

Pink joins Jeremy Hoff and Ray Gooden as the only other players in the history of the ETHS boys volleyball program to make it to the Evanston Hall of Fame.

Not bad for someone who began his athletic career as a tennis player as a freshman, and then was forced to choose another sport that same spring.

Pink joined the volleyball program the same year that Chris Livatino --- now the athletic director at ETHS --- became the head coach. He earned a spot on the varsity team as a sophomore and was named all-Central Suburban League South division for three straight seasons.

“We had a great team my junior year (third at the Illinois High School Association state tournament, still the best finish in school history with a 36-5-1 record). We lost unexpectedly to Warren --- I remember how frustrated Chris was because he was so driven to win in those days --- and after that we won 15 matches in a row. We didn’t lose again until the state semifinals.”

Pink led the Wildkits to a 31-6 mark as a senior, then had a stellar career at Rutgers University. He was a first-team all-conference choice three straight years at Rutggers and ranked in the top 15 nationally for kills his last three seasons. He was named Athlete of the Year at Rutgers in 2005.

Pink participated in 3 World Championships, 4 European Championships and 5 European leagues while helping Great Britain climb up from a world ranking of about 140^th in 2007 to 27^th. The hosts didn’t advance out of pool play at the Olympics, however, and Pink’s days with the national team ended about 6 months following the Olympics.

In April 2014, Hulse was named the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Assistant Coach of the Year after guiding the Ramblers to their second straight NCAA Final Four appearance.

One month earlier, he was a recipient of the AVCA Thirty Under 30 award, an honor bestowed upon 30 up-and-coming volleyball coaches under 30 years old at all levels of the game. In addition to his coaching duties at Loyola, Hulse has served as a coach for the USA Youth A1 National Training Program in 2016, 2014 and 2012. In 2019, Hulse served as an assistant coach with USA Volleyball at the Pan American Games in Peru.

During his time as a student-athlete, Hulse competed for two seasons at Rutgers-Newark University before transferring to Pepperdine University for his final two years of collegiate eligibility. As a member of the Waves' men's volleyball squad, Hulse helped the program to 39 wins in two years, including a 22-5 overall mark in 2009. A force at the net, he was a starting middle blocker and a key contributor on Pepperdine's 2008 squad that finished as NCAA Runner-Up, losing to Penn State in the national championship match.