8 inducted into Maine Sports Hall

BANGOR – Watching her 3-year-old son Shawn Michael play his first organized T-ball team made Lynne Walsh think a lot about her husband, the late Shawn Walsh, and the influence he had on the members of his University of Maine men’s ice hockey team as their coach.

“We can positively influence kids in our society by supporting team sports,” Walsh said during the Maine Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Bangor Inn and Convention Center Sunday night.

Shawn Walsh, who led the Black Bears to two NCAA titles before his death in September 2001, was one of eight men inducted into the Hall. Walsh and former Maine football coach Fred Brice were inducted posthumously. The rest of the inductees were Ordman Alley, Wayne Champeon, Phil Emery, Charles “Gus” Folsom, John “Jack” Scott, and Thaxter Trafton.

“When you play team sports and then you receive an individual award like this, you’re just stunned,” said Champeon, a former two-sport star at the University of Maine. “And I am some stunned now.”

Almost every inductee mentioned the coaches who influenced them in their early years, and the importance of community support to their success.

About 300 people, including some of those influential coaches, attended the dinner.

Other honors given out Sunday included scholar-athlete awards for 10 Maine high schoolers, the Chet Bulger award for the state’s outstanding high school football lineman, the President’s Award, which was given posthumously to John A. Millar of Houlton, and outstanding achievement awards to Rev. John Civiello, a Millinocket native, and Bob White of Caribou.

Several members of the University of Maine coaching staff, including football coach Jack Cosgrove, current men’s hockey coach Tim Whitehead, field hockey coach Terry Kix, baseball coach Paul Kostacopoulos, and women’s basketball coach Sharon Versyp, attended the evening’s events.

Lynne Walsh got a standing ovation when she was introduced.

“Shawn felt intense gratification for the support of the state of Maine,” she said.

Both Folsom, a Stearns High and University of Maine standout, and Scott, an Ellsworth basketball star who is considered to be one of Maine’s greatest athletes, reminisced about their legendary high school coaches, George Wentworth of Stearns and Charlie Katsiaficas of Ellsworth, respectively.

“I owe him dearly,” Scott said of Katsiaficas. “I think he was one of the greatest coaches in Maine.”

Emery, who has coached the Bangor boys swimming team to 20 state championships in 34 years, pointed out Phil Lucas, one of his high school coaches, who came up from Portland to attend the ceremony.

“The real reward has been the opportunity to work closely with so many young men and young women,” Emery told the crowd. “… The coaching has been the journey. It has not been the destination.”

Alley, who has brought nine state and 13 Eastern Maine boys basketball championships home to the lobstering communities of the area, credited his former players who “worked so hard.”

Alley has struggled with health problems recently, and called the past few years the “most difficult” of his life. But he retains his sense of humor.

“If you don’t understand what I’m saying, it isn’t your hearing,” he said in a thick accent, drawing hearty laughter. “I’m from Down East. … I’m probably the first foreigner they’ve ever elected.”