Last year's Maine Basketball Hall of Fame class to be inducted in August

Apr. 28—The Maine Basketball Hall of Fame will induct its Class of 2020 during ceremonies scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 22, at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.

The event was canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

That year's class will be inducted this year, with the next class to be enshrined in 2022.

Seventeen people, as well as seven Legends of the Game and the 1987 Morse High School of Bath boys basketball team, will be honored during this summer's ceremony.

Individuals set for induction include former Cony High School and University of Maine standout and current UMaine women's basketball coach Amy Vachon; former Mountain Valley of Rumford, Boston College and UMaine player Andy Bedard; ex-Winthrop High School and Villanova player T.J. Caouette; longtime Falmouth High School boys basketball coach David Halligan; and the late former Caribou boys basketball coach Gerry Duffy, who guided the Vikings to three Eastern Maine championships and the 1969 state title.

Others in the Class of 2020 are sisters Lynn Bay and Sharon Bay, former Portland High School standouts who starred collegiately at Boston University (Lynn) and at the University of Vermont (Sharon); their coach at Portland High, Ed Feeney, who led the Bulldogs to three state championships and 11 state finals in a 15-year span; the late Arnold Clark, longtime former Calais and Woodland High School coach; Heidi Deery of Rangeley, the only coach to have won a state title as a player (1984) and a coach (1992, 2004 and 2016) at the same school; and Tony DiBiase, an all-state player at Westbrook High School who went on to coach teams to four state championships.

Also, Phil Faulkner, who has coached high school basketball in Aroostook County for more than 50 years; Elizabeth "Biz" Houghton, a dominant center for Cape Elizabeth High School and a four-year player at Boston College; Gavin Kane, the women's basketball coach at the University of Maine at Presque Isle who previously coached boys and girls high school teams in western Maine to seven state championships and 12 regional titles; Ken Lynch, who played in the backcourt with former Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown for the undefeated 1979 Class A state championship South Portland Red Riots before going on to start for four years at Bowdoin College; Chris Sawyer, another South Portland standout who went on to start for three years at Bentley; and Dick Whitmore III, one of the foundations for Waterville High School's 1985 Class A state championship team who went on to start as a freshman at Brown University.

Legends of the Game are Bryce Beattie, who coached in New Hampshire and Maine and amassed more than 400 wins by introducing an up-tempo style of play based on full-court pressure; Ray Bicknell, the longtime former men's basketball coach at Bowdoin College; the late Al Card, well-known high school and college basketball referee; Peter Gribbin, the public address announcer for Portland High basketball and the Maine Principals' Association tournament in southern Maine; former Winslow High School coach Jim Poulin; Steve Shaw, a fixture in Aroostook County basketball circles including successful stints coaching at Easton and Central Aroostook of Mars Hill; and Mike Thurston, for three decades one of the state's top basketball officials and the former Caribou High School guard best known for his buzzer-beating 64-foot shot to lift the Vikings to the 1969 Class LL state championship.

The ceremony is open to the public, and tickets will be available beginning in late May through the MBHoF website.