Kikkan Randall's Olympic gold and Fairbanks football star Reggie Tongue highlight 2023 Alaska Sports Hall of Fame class

Dec. 6—Kikkan Randall Gold Olympics

Fairbanks football star Reggie Tongue and former Colony basketball standout Jessica Moore are among the inductees for the 2023 Alaska Sports Hall of Fame class announced Monday.

Also inducted in the Moment category was Alaska skier Kikkan Randall's run to Olympic gold in 2018 with Jessica Diggins at the Winter Olympics in South Korea.

Kodiak sports stalwart Joe Floyd was also in the 2023 class as well as the Alaska state high school basketball tournament in the Event category.

Tongue started his career at Lathrop High School and moved on to Oregon State University, where he was twice named an all-Pac 10 performer. From there he was drafted as a defensive back by the Kansas City Chiefs in the second round of the 1996 NFL Draft.

Tongue started 116 of 145 career games with Kansas City, Seattle and the New York Jets.

"Reggie Tongue was a very good running back, but he was a great defensive back at Lathrop High, fast and ferocious," said Alaska Sports Hall of Fame selection panel member and former Anchorage Daily News reporter Doyle Woody in a release from the ASHOF. "By his senior year, there were games in which opposing ball carriers and receivers increasingly sought the sanctuary of the sidelines because they had no taste for more of Tongue's punishing, demoralizing hits."

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Moore won a pair of state titles with Colony and went on to star at the University of Connecticut, where she won three NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament championships with the Huskies. She went on to play nine seasons in the WNBA with the Los Angeles Sparks and Indiana Fever.

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"Jessica Moore's career speaks for itself when it comes to her Hall of Fame credentials," said Selection Panel Chair Beth Bragg in a release from the ASHOF. "But she was also a pioneer, someone who showed Alaska girls that there are few limits to those with talent and drive. At 6-foot-3, Moore could practically touch the glass ceiling with her fingertips — and she proceeded to shatter it for generations to come."

Joe Floyd

Floyd helped build nearly every sports program in Kodiak, with special focus on wrestling, basketball and baseball.

In 2012, the ASHOF named a special award after Floyd given for "significant and lasting contribution to Alaska through sports."

Aside from the three individuals, a Moment and an Event were added to the Hall.

Randall and Diggins made history in 2018, becoming the first American cross-country skiers to win a gold medal. The duo won the women's team sprint in thrilling fashion, leaving a lasting impression on Alaskans and gave fans of Team USA their most memorable moment of the Games. Randall was inducted into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.

170316, 3/16/17, Anchorage, 2017 March Madness, state basketball tournament, 1A, 2A, Shaktoolik

The State Basketball Tournament or March Madness Alaska, is among the biggest draws in the entire state. Held over a pair of weekends each year, the tournaments feature four classes for both boys and girls and 118 total games.

"Level of pride brought to Alaskans is a key consideration in deciding who gets in and the people, moment and event," said Harlow Robinson, executive director of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame in a release. "This is a great class of inductees and we're excited to put their portraits on the wall."

Nearly 1,000 people participated in the public vote last month, according to the ASHOF. That cumulative public vote is submitted as one ballot. Each selection panel member has a ballot and the final ballot includes a cumulative vote of the living Alaska Sports Hall of Fame inductees.