His eyes welling with pride, Butch Eskridge raised his arm and pointed into the sea of people inside Soiland Multipurpose Arena.
"I'm so proud to be up here, but I've got to say, the people at that table, they are my legacy," said Eskridge, a 1977 graduate and member of Cal Lutheran's Hall of Fame Class of 2025.
Thirteen family members - including Eskridge's four children and seven grandchildren - made the 1,500-mile trek from Texas to Thousand Oaks to attend the Oct. 17 induction ceremony.
"God's plans, sometimes, you don't know," Eskridge, 71, said in a Southern drawl. "I have the privilege of looking back 50 years and seeing how God's plan has worked out. He let me play high school basketball and football together, and then I get to do it in college. I get to go to a wonderful college with some of the greatest people and play with some of the greatest teammates a man could ask for."
"When I told (my family) 'Dad got into the Hall of Fame,' the first thing they said: 'When are we going?'"
Eskridge's acceptance speech was one of several highlights from a memorable event, a revamped ceremony that was moved at the last minute from the Lundring Events Center to the larger arena to accommodate a capacity crowd.
Brandy Yee, PhD, master of ceremonies and faculty adviser to the women's volleyball team, started the evening by introducing the 17 current Hall of Fame members in attendance, who then formed a human tunnel through which the newest inductees walked.
"Athletics at Cal Lutheran is more than a series of competitions and victories," Yee said. "Our athletics program has built a foundation for resilient, purpose-driven and compassionate leaders, qualities that sustain communities long after the final whistle."
This year's class featured Eskridge, Nick Boggan '13 (baseball), Joy (Cyprian '10) Buechler (water polo), Michelle Lawrence '17 (volleyball), Lynn Thompson '66 (football and baseball) and the 2015 Regals Volleyball team, the first team in university history to win an NCAA championship.
Lawrence, MVP of the 2015 team, used some of her time at the mic to praise Kellee Roesel, who just celebrated her 400th victory as a coach.
"She made me tougher, she made me more resilient, and she better prepared me for life beyond volleyball," Lawrence said.
The dominant outside hitter, who ranks among the program's all-time leaders in kills and blocks despite playing only three seasons, said her time in Thousand Oaks forever changed the trajectory of her life.
"Winning the first NCAA championship in school history with this group of women was incredible," she said of her junior-year season. "That night against Wittenburg, with the dancing in the locker room, the strobe light, the celebration, the tears, the hugs … it was just this incredible feeling of being a part of something so much bigger than myself."
Each athlete's speech was preceded by a five-minute video featuring photos, highlights and interviews with former teammates and coaches.
Thompson, who played on the first-ever Kingsmen football team in 1962, remarked on the passage of time.
"Who is that guy up there anyway?" he joked after watching his video. "It's been 60 years, so I can't quite remember some of that stuff."
Thompson, a four-year letter winner in both football and baseball, was recruited by Bob Shoup, the program's original head coach.
"He told me he could save me $100 off the cost of tuition because I was a Lutheran," Thompson said to laughs.
The 81-year-old reminisced about his first visit to the fledgling campus.
"I looked around, no football field, no locker room, no gymnasium, no baseball field," he said. "Coach proceeded to show me the practice field … today it is the front yard of the Pederson House. That was the only patch of grass on the whole campus where we could practice football. We had to travel to Camarillo High School once a week to get enough grass so we could practice our passing game."
"He told me what the facilities would look like in a year and how we could build a program if we got the right players," Thompson added. "I still can't figure out how we knew the Dallas Cowboys were coming in 1963 to help build those facilities."
By the time Thompson was a senior, Cal Lutheran had the best offense in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and finished with an 8-1 record, largely due to Thompson, a versatile two-way player.
Thompson said his inclusion in the 2025 class was "an honor I will cherish for the rest of my life."
"Once a Kingsman, always a Kingsman," he said.
A native born Texan, Eskridge, a two-sport star in football and basketball, talked about the unlikely path that led him to the university. His father, who was the original equipment manager for the Dallas Cowboys, brought him along for training camp in the late sixties.
"Child labor at its worst, trust me," he joked. "Fourteen years old and I'm trying to fit guys 6-foot-9 with shoulder pads."
During Eskridge's senior year of high school, star linebacker Brian Kelley - a fellow Texan who went on to a career with the New York Giants - rushed into the Kingsmen locker room looking for someone to fill out his team's roster in a summer 7-on-7 tournament. Though Eskridge hadn't played football since his sophomore year, he accepted the challenge.
"We went out there, and I just played football. And unbeknownst to me, Coach Shoup was sitting up in the stands, and he came down afterward, and I guess I'd done pretty good. … He said 'Son, where you playing football at next year? And I said 'Coach, I'm not a football player I'm a basketball player.'"
It took some convincing, but Shoup eventually convinced Eskridge that if he came to Cal Lutheran, he'd have the chance to play both sports.
"Coach Shoup saw in me the potential to be a wide receiver, and I'm truly grateful for that," said Eskridge, a three-year starter at both receiver and punter.
Five decades removed from action, Eskridge, ever the competitor, still expressed frustration over failing to win a national title in 1975, a year the team finished 10-1.
"We played the worst game of our entire lives on that one day, and we just happened to lose to a team from Texas," he said. "Made it even worse."
Baseball's Boggan expressed his gratitude for finding a home at Cal Lutheran.
"There was really only one school coming out of high school that took a chance on me, and it was Cal Lu," he said. "So thank you for believing in me."
A two-time All-American, Boggan is one of the most elite sluggers in Kingsmen baseball history. During his senior year, the first baseman from Pacific Grove hit .412, knocked 13 home runs and recorded 67 RBIs (a Cal Lutheran record to this day). Boggan appeared in 150 games for the purple and gold, fourth most all-time, and remains among the program's career leaders in RBIs (first, 157), hits (second, 199) and home runs (second, 29).
"To my teammates: this honor is as much theirs as it is mine," he said. "Without them, I would not be standing up here today. From the 5 a.m. workouts to the long bus rides … these guys became my family, and I was fortunate for them to support me every step of the way."
Like most inductees, Boggan thanked his parents for their unfailing love and support. He said before he left for Cal Lutheran, his mom and dad gave him a series of handwritten notes to take with him to college. Among the most prescient was from his father, Brad, who told him: "Swing hard … you just may hit it."
Before sitting down, Boggan made a pitch to the Hall of Fame committee for the Class of 2026, suggesting Trevor Koons be added to the university's list of all-time greats.
"Trevor leads Cal Lu in all-time hits and doubles, which made my job easier," he said. "Every time I came up to the plate, it seemed like Koons was in scoring position."
Buechler became just the second member of the women's water polo program elected to the Hall of Fame. The two-time All-American played an instrumental role in the team's national title wins in 2007 and 2010, graduating as the Regals' all-time leader in goals (223) and assists (143).
"The lessons I learned here … are still shaping who I am and who I am becoming," she said. "This recognition isn't just mine. It belongs to every teammate, every coach and everyone who's ever believed in me along the way."
Buechler, who competed in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, only six days before the ceremony, thanked her husband Evan, whom she met while attending Cal Lutheran.
"Thank you for cheering from the stands, for the post-game dinners - especially when I smelled like a pool - and for believing in me every step of the way," she said.
