Katsiaficas among Hall inductees

Former Ellsworth High School basketball coach Charles Katsiaficas, former University of Maine women’s basketball coach Joanne Palombo-McCallie, and longtime Rumford and Mountain Valley High wrestling coach Jerry Perkins are among eight people who will be inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame.

The 33rd annual induction ceremony will be held June 1 at 11 a.m. at the Italian Heritage Center in Portland. Tickets may be purchased by calling Bill Daviero at 899-0569.

Others to be inducted are former South Portland and Scarborough football coach Jack Flynn; ex-National Football League player Bob Hews of South Portland; former Canadian Football League player Dick Desmarais of Sanford; and two posthumous inductees, Maine golfing legend Al Biondi of Augusta and basketball and baseball standout Richard J. “Sonny” Conley of Portland.

Katsiaficas, a Lowell, Mass., native, came to Ellsworth in 1951 and guided the Eagles to two state championships in 1953 and 1954 and two trips to the New England championships. Both years, Ellsworth fell to eventual New England champion New London, Conn., in a first-round game in 1953 and by one point to Hillhouse (Conn.) High in the 1954 semifinals.

Katsiaficas, who brought man-to-man defensive pressure and fast-breaking offenses to Hancock County and Eastern Maine, compiled a 92-15 coaching record in five seasons at Ellsworth before going on to become one of the state’s top high school and college basketball officials.

He also is considered the originator of teaching the one-hand push shot, which was the subject of his master’s thesis at Springfield College.

Palombo-McCallie, born in Monterey, Calif., played high school basketball in Brunswick and was named a third-team Parade All-American as a senior in 1983. She went on to play at Northwestern before beginning her coaching career at Auburn in 1988.

McCallie came to the University of Maine four years later, and compiled a 167-73 record while leading the Black Bears to seven consecutive 20-win seasons and six NCAA tournament appearances before leaving after the 2000 season to take the head job at Michigan State.

Her seven-year tenure at Michigan State was highlighted by a trip to the NCAA Division I championship game in 2005, when she also was named national coach of the year by The Associated Press.

She recently completed her first season at Duke, where she led the Blue Devils to a 25-10 record and a berth in the NCAA’s Sweet 16.

Perkins a 1963 graduate of Brewer High School who now lives in Orrington, went on to play offensive guard at the University of Maine, where he started on the team that played in the 1965 Tangerine Bowl.

After graduating from Maine, Perkins coached football and wrestling at Rumford. He coached wrestling there for 21 years and, after a six-year absence, returned to coaching at Mountain Valley, which was formed by the merger of Rumford and Mexico high schools.

Perkins’ wrestling teams compiled a dual-meet record of 432-73-7, including winning streaks of 57, 47, 39 and 28 matches. His teams won five state championships (1972, 1973, 1974, 1978 and 1981) along with nine state runner-up finishes and 13 regional titles.

His teams also finished fourth in the New England championships three times.

Desmarais was a four-sport standout in high school who then went to Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield where he set a school scoring record for an undefeated football team and also helped MCI win a prep school track championship.

He went on to attend Boston University where he starred in football and track before he joined the CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders in 1961. He played in the CFL for two years.

Flynn, an All-New England football player at Bates College in Lewiston, became head football coach at South Portland from 1966 to 1984. His teams there went 112-72-3 with eight regional titles.

He returned to coaching as an assistant at Bowdoin in 1994, then returned to the high school ranks as head coach of the first-year Scarborough team in 1999.

In 2002, the Red Storm rallied past Belfast 14-12 to give Flynn his only state title. He went 24-7 in four years at Scarborough, making his overall record 146-79-3.

Hews was a standout football and track athlete at South Portland who went on to Princeton, where he was an All-Ivy League defensive tackle and an honorable mention All-American.

Drafted in the sixth round of the NFL draft by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1970, he also played for the Buffalo Bills in 1971.

Biondi, based primarily at the Augusta Country Club, taught some of Maine’s top golfers, including Martha Page White, Penny Cummings, Mark Plummer, Bob Mathews, Bob Webber, Dick Diversi, Jane Diplock and Lori Frost – all winners of the Maine Amateur.

He also helped organize the Maine PGA, designed the Springbrook Country Club in Leeds, won 16 Maine PGA senior championships and qualified for the U.S. Senior PGA Championships seven times.

Conley starred athletically at Cheverus High of Portland, where he was an All-New England basketball player in 1947 and 1948. After serving in the Army, he became a noted semi-pro baseball player and later was named to the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame.

Conley, who also participated in fast-pitch softball, skiing, tennis and golf, went on to have a 25-year career as a basketball official.