Four to enter Orange Coast Hall

The late Dan Quisenberry, a star relief pitcher for the Kansas City Royals in the 1980s, tops a cast of four who will be inducted into the Orange Coast College Athletic Hall of Fame today at 4 p.m. at the school’s gymnasium.

Al Irwin, who coached football, water polo and swimming at OCC; Zoila Gomez, a former cross country and track and field star; and Jim Carnett, a former sports information and community relations director, round out the class.

The honorees will also be recognized at the Pirates’ 6 p.m. home football game against Glendale.

Quisenberry, who was 45 when he died in 1998 of brain cancer, is the only five-time winner of the Rolaids Relief Pitcher of the Year award.

The Costa Mesa High product posted 244 saves and a 2.76 earned-run average in 12 Major League seasons, all for the Royals. He was the first to record at least 40 saves in one season (1983) and he helped the Royals win the World Series in 1985. He was a three-time All-Star.

Quisenberry was 15-15 with a 1.88 ERA in two seasons at OCC (1972-73) before playing collegiately at La Verne. He signed as an undrafted free agent and made his big-league debut in 1979.

“Quiz” is a member of the OCC School Hall of Fame, the Royals Hall of Fame and the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame.

He devoted countless hours to various charities in the Kansas City area and helped raise millions of dollars during and after his playing career.

Irwin, a former Athletic Director and coach at Newport Harbor High, coached football for one season at OCC, an 8-1-2 campaign in 1956. An illness relegated him to coaching aquatics the next nine years. His men’s water polo teams were 136-74 and he guided the swim team to a 114-21 record that included eight straight conference titles.

Irwin left OCC for UC Irvine, where he guided the swim team for 13 seasons (1965 through 1978), including an NCAA Division II national championship.

He was also an assistant athletic director at UCI.

Irwin won 15 varsity letters at Newport Harbor High (Class of 1936), where he later coached the swim program to 14 league and two CIF Southern Section titles.

He was an All-Coast football player at the University of the Pacific and was also a longtime lifeguard.

Gomez, a Costa Mesa High graduate who competed at OCC from 1998 through 2000, did not lose a cross country race and led the Pirates to back-to-back state championships.

She won four individual state titles in track and field and became one of only three to win the school’s Female Athlete of the Year award twice.

Gomez was an 11-time All-American and won six NCAA Division II national titles in cross country and track at Adams State College in Colorado. She then focused on the marathon.

She represented the United States at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan, and was an alternate for the 2008 Olympic team after finishing fourth at the trials.

While training for the 2012 Olympics, Gomez teaches English as a second language and makes public speaking appearances in the Alamosa area.

Carnett, for whom the school’s football press box was named after his retirement in 2008, spent 46 years as a student and employee at OCC.

Another Costa Mesa High graduate, Carnett was sports information director from 1971 to 1985. He also served in various positions in marketing and community relations for the school and won 41 first-place writing awards in national, regional and state competition.

Nicknamed Mr. OCC, he won 16 national awards for his athletic publications.

He received a lifetime achievement award from the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce in 2007 and is a member of the Costa Mesa Hall of Fame.

He is also in the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations Hall of Fame and was the organization’s National Communicator of the Year in 1987.

— From staff reports