Two Weber State Careers the Whole State Should Know

Weber State added two names to the Big Sky Conference Hall of Fame on July 25, 2026, at the league's Football Kickoff Weekend at Northern Quest Resort & Casino outside Spokane. Distance runner Amber Henry and center Willie Sojourner were inducted roughly four decades apart in competitive era, and together they cover most of what Utah athletic greatness can look like.

This is not a congratulations post. Both careers contain records that still stand, and both are worth knowing on their own terms.

Amber Henry: 11 conference titles across three seasons a year

Henry competed for the Wildcats from 2010 to 2014 in cross country and track and field, and the volume of what she won is the headline. She was an 11-time Big Sky champion.

Those 11 titles were spread across the full calendar rather than concentrated in one event. She won two Big Sky cross country individual championships (2011 and 2012), two steeplechase titles, two 1,500-meter titles, and a 5,000-meter title outdoors. Indoors she added two mile championships, an 800-meter title, and a 3,200-meter title.

She remains the only Wildcat to win the Big Sky individual cross country championship twice.

Nationally, Henry was a three-time All-American. Two of those came in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, making her the first Weber State athlete to earn All-America honors twice in a single event. Her best national finish came in 2013, when she placed third in 9:43.39. She also earned All-America honors in cross country in 2012 and qualified for the NCAA Cross Country National Championships twice.

Henry entered the Weber State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2022. The Big Sky induction in 2026 is the conference-level recognition of the same body of work.

There is a direct line from Henry's record book to the present. The steeplechase is currently the event where Utah programs compete most visibly at the national level — see BYU's four-athlete showing at the 2026 U.S. Championships. Henry was doing that work in a Weber State uniform more than a decade earlier.

Willie Sojourner: a rebounding record that has outlasted everyone

Sojourner played three seasons at Weber State, from 1968 to 1971, and reached the NCAA Tournament in every one of them.

The 6-foot-9 center from Philadelphia averaged 14.1 rebounds per game for his career. That is still the Big Sky Conference record — more than 50 years later. Across 81 career games he scored 1,563 points and pulled down 1,143 rebounds, which ranks second in Weber State history behind Joel Bolomboy.

His individual seasons are startling. As a freshman he averaged 18.8 points and 13 rebounds per game. As a junior he averaged 21.2 points and 15.8 rebounds, still the Weber State single-season rebounding record. He holds the school's single-game record with 25 rebounds.

The team results tracked with him. Weber State went 27-3 in his freshman season, and in 1969 he led the Wildcats to two NCAA Tournament wins, over Seattle and New Mexico State. Across his tenure the program went 68-16 overall and 39-5 in Big Sky play, winning three consecutive conference titles. He was a three-time First Team All-Big Sky selection, and his No. 35 became the first retired jersey in Weber State basketball history.

The part most people do not know

Sojourner was also a track athlete — a three-time Big Sky high jump champion and the first Weber State high jumper to clear seven feet. He placed third at the 1970 national championships in the high jump, making him Weber State's first Division I All-American.

He was drafted eighth overall in the 1971 ABA Draft by the Virginia Squires and 20th overall in the NBA Draft by the Chicago Bulls. He played four ABA seasons and six professional seasons in Italy. In Virginia he was a teammate of Julius Erving — and per the Big Sky's own Hall of Fame biography, Sojourner is the person who gave Erving the nickname "Dr. J."

A Weber State center named one of the most famous athletes in American sports history. That detail belongs in Utah's sports canon and almost nobody in the state knows it.

Why these two together

Henry and Sojourner make seven former Wildcat athletes or coaches in the Big Sky Hall of Fame, joining Damian Lillard, Lindsey Anderson, Chick Hislop, Jamie Martin, and Dick Motta.

Put side by side, the two 2026 inductees cover women's distance running and men's basketball, the 1960s and the 2010s, and conference dominance alongside national-level recognition. Both also crossed sports — Henry between cross country and track, Sojourner between basketball and the high jump — in a way that is far less common in modern specialized athletics.

They are Ogden stories, but the records are statewide history.

## Key facts: - Induction: Big Sky Conference Hall of Fame, July 25, 2026, at Big Sky Football Kickoff Weekend, Northern Quest Resort & Casino, Airway Heights, Wash. - Amber Henry (Weber State, 2010-14): 11-time Big Sky champion; three-time All-American; two-time steeplechase All-American; two-time Big Sky cross country individual champion (2011, 2012) — the only Wildcat to do it twice - Henry's best national finish: third in the 3,000m steeplechase in 2013 (9:43.39); Weber State Hall of Fame, 2022 - Willie Sojourner (Weber State, 1968-71): 14.1 career rebounds per game — still the Big Sky record; 1,563 points and 1,143 rebounds in 81 games - Sojourner's team record: 68-16 overall, 39-5 in Big Sky play, three straight conference titles, NCAA Tournament all three seasons; 27-3 as a freshman - Also a three-time Big Sky high jump champion and Weber State's first Division I All-American (third nationally, 1970) - Weber State now has seven Big Sky Hall of Fame members - Sources: Weber State Athletics, Big Sky Conference Hall of Fame, Standard-Examiner