Record-breaking statistics. Clutch performances. Championship banners.

The makings of a Hall of Famer are usually as simple to spot as they are difficult to obtain.

The credentials of coaches Larry Baratte and Ned Mircetic, who have given Ventura College the majority of its 11 state championships, usher them into the Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame on Sunday, when they will take their rightful place alongside such other local luminaries as Lou Cvijanovich, Joe Vaughan and Ken Reeves.

"It's a terrific honor," said Baratte. "There are only a few of us aquatic coaches who have been honored this way. It's really special to me."

But the swimming and basketball coaches' legacies are more than the seven state championships and 37 Western State Conference titles for which they combine.

While Hall of Famers are usually forged on athletic success and so many coaches preach academics, Baratte and Mircetic have quietly built programs that have produced in the classroom as much as in competition.

And serve as an example to their peers that success on both fronts can go hand in hand.

Baratte and Mircetic are the only coaches in state history to win their sport's state championship and state scholar team award in the same season.

Since 1984, the Commission on Athletics, the state's community college governing body, has bestowed the scholar team award to the one team in every sport that combines the highest total GPA with "better than average accomplishments" in competition.

In 2002, the VC women's basketball team, coached by Mircetic, won its fifth state title in Stockton over Mount San Antonio College. The team, which included state Co-Player of the Year Monique Taylor, carried a 3.37 GPA.

This year's team, which won the program's 17th straight WSC North title, carried a 3.39 GPA.

"He strives for us to be just as successful in the classroom as we are on the court," said the team's current star, Jessi Selleh.

In 2005, the VC men's swimming team, coached by Baratte, won the school's first state title in Pleasant Hill. The team, which included state Swimmer of the Year Cheyne O'Gorman, carried a 3.37 GPA.

With seven straight state scholar team awards, the program has won the honor far more times than any other program in any sport, statewide. This year's team, with a 3.21 GPA, has put together a strong push toward No. 8.

"Grades are almost more important (to Baratte), as a prerequisite to competing," said Kneif Lohse, the 2007 state champion in the 400-meter individual medley.

"If we don't have our four hours (in study hall per week) and our grades aren't strong, we can't even get in the pool."

The statistics are fitting, since the styles of both coaches overlap the both fields of competition and academics.

"It's all in his philosophy," said Robin Hester, Mircetic's assistant coach for five years. "It's not about winning and losing. It's about giving your best effort all the time. That applies to everything basketball, school and life.

" We Play Hard' underlies everything that he teaches."

There's a certain opportunity cost to joining Baratte's program. In his speech to his team before the season, Baratte sometimes reminds his team that they would be thousands of dollars richer if they'd instead spend all the hours they were about to spend in the pool at a minimum-wage job.

"It's not a bad thing for you not to want to part of this program, we ask a lot," said Baratte. "There's a lot of time involved.

"If you're choosing to do this, you're going to do it right."

From study halls to mentor groups to computer labs to precise practice plans, both coaches have set an environment for success that touches the competitive and academic realms.

But they lay the ultimate responsibility at the feet of their student athletes.

"I've never been an individual who cracks a whip," said Baratte. "I require certain things. Undisciplined individuals don't really stick around much."

Especially in a sport like swimming, in which success is based on commitment, discipline and self-sacrifice.

"It really comes down to the athletes," said Baratte. "We're going to support them and provide an environment for success but a student is going to have to take accountability for their own education."

Mircetic is modest about his role in his players' education.

"Sometimes you just try to sharpen the focus and the kids take off on their own," said Mircetic. "You give them a pathway and they take it."

"I believe I shouldn't get much credit for their successes in the classroom. Ultimately, they have to get the grade."

But many of Mircetic's players, including Julie Essary, a member of the doubly successful 2002-03 team, highlight their experience playing for Mircetic as a significant moment in their lives.

"I've said this before," said Essary. "I honestly think that, without Ned, I could have gone a different direction in my life. He was strict. He was tough. But also, he was a friend."

Essary remembers Mircetic opening practice by asking her teammates, "What's our first priority? School."

Now married with children in Kansas City, Mo., Essary earned an academic and basketball scholarship at Rockhurt University in Kansas City. She partially credits Mircetic with that achievement.

"Without him, I might have gone to a school and not have gotten the education I have today," said Essary. "He pushed you just that little bit further."

At the banquet after his team had won the state title, O'Gorman accepted his scholar-athlete award with more vigor than he had received his state Swimmer of the Year plaque.

"This is the first time I've ever received one of these," the Arizona State-bound swimmer joked.

"School had never been an easy thing for him," said O'Gorman's father, Shawn. "I think he was a little nervous at the beginning, but once he got there, I think Larry was able to give him the confidence and the tools necessary to be successful on the academic side.

"I think that fueled Cheyne. Larry's ability to motivate was incredible."

Her experience with Mircetic affected Essary so much that she encouraged her mother, Kathy, to go back to school to get her degree. Kathy Essary started the process in a logic class at VC that included her daughter, Julie and son, Joe.

Now a graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Kathy Essary, 53, is studying for her master's degree in education. Her daughter's voice cracked with joyful emotion as she told the story.

"Out of everybody I know, Ned Mircetic was the one that was most proud of her," said Essary. "I'm getting emotional because it's real."

The successes of Baratte and Mircetic would be impossible if it were not.