Vermont Sports Hall of Fame: What to know about the 2023 class, induction dinner

The 10th induction class of the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame is made up stars and pioneers from Alpine skiing to Mountain biking and from the harwood to the soccer pitch.

The VSHOF's Board of Directors last month unveiled its 2023 class, which will officially be enshrined during a celebration banquet on Saturday, April 29.

The induction dinner begins with a 5:30 p.m. reception at Delta Marriott Burlington Hotel on Williston Road in South Burlington. Tickets are $95 each and PayPal is the preferred method of payment. To purchase tickets and for more information, visit vermontsportshall.com/dinnerinfo.html.

2022:Vermont Sports Hall of Fame unveils inductees for 2022 class

A portion of the proceeds from the dinner and raffles will benefit Prevent Child Abuse Vermont, the VSHOF's designated charity. Previous dinners have raised over $23,000 for the organization, a news release stated.

This year's class brings the hall's membership total to 118 since the first class was inducted in 2012. Thirteen of the state's 14 counties are represented.

This year's class (from the VSHOF release):

SUZANNE CHAFFEE

Alpine skiing

An Olympic and World Cup skier, Chaffee was a trend-setting and successful alpine and freestyle skier whose off-the-slopes activism dramatically helped change the amateur and Olympic landscape. She competed in the downhill and giant slalom at the 1968 Winter Olympics and helped develop the professional freestyle circuit in 1971, winning the first women’s division three straight years. She was the first woman on the USOC board of directors and was named to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness under four administrations.

KELLY CLARK

Snowboarding

West Dover's Kelly Clark (USA) celebrates after the ladies' halfpipe finals of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
West Dover's Kelly Clark (USA) celebrates after the ladies' halfpipe finals of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.

A five-time Olympian and a three-time medalist in snowboarding, Dorset's Clark retired as one of the world’s most accomplished female competitors in the half-pipe. She competed in five straight Olympics starting in 2002, never finishing lower than fourth, and captured three half-pipe medals. She earned gold in 2002 in Salt Lake City and bronze medals in 2010 in Vancouver and 2014 in Sochi. She just missed the podium in 2006 and 2018. She also was a three-time FIS World Cup standings champion and twice finished second, and also won the most medals competing in 19 straight ESPN Winter X games.

LEA DAVISON

Mountain biking

One of the world’s best in cross country mountain biking, Jericho's Davison was a two-time Olympian, racing in the 2012 London games where she finished 11th and then seventh in 2016 in Rio. Davison competed for the U.S. in seven world championships, with her high a second-place finish in 2016. She also won a bronze in the worlds in 2014 and was third overall in the 2015 World Cup series, and was an eight-time U.S. national champion and a two-time Elite Cross Country champion. She was excellent athlete in track and alpine skiing at Mount Mansfield Union High and at Middlebury College.

JAKE EATON

Multi-sport/football

A multi-sport standout at Rutland High School, Eaton went on to a very successful collegiate career at the University of Maine. where as a three-year starter at quarterback. The only two-time Vermont Gatorade football player of the year, Eaton was also a standout in basketball and baseball at Rutland. In college, he led the Black Bears to two conference titles while setting several school passing records. He also played professionally in arena football before returning to Vermont to embark on a successful high school coaching and administrative career at Proctor.

DAVE FREDRICKSON

Basketball (coach)

During his 36-year basketball coaching career at both Arlington and Mount Anthony from 1963 to 1999, Fredrickson's teams won 505 games, winning 18 league titles with 17 Final Four appearances. He took Mount Anthony to the D-I championship game 10 times and captured eight state titles, his first coming in 1974, and had a Vermont record five straight between 1988 and 1992. Since 1999, he has served as the executive director of the Vermont Basketball Coaches Association, serving the sport in the Green Mountain State for over six decades.

JASMYN HUNTINGTON FLETCHER

Basketball

A prolific scorer at Oxbow High School who went on to play Division I basketball at Nevada-Reno in the Big West and North Carolina in the ACC. Huntington, nicknamed "Jazz," scored the 2,079 points at Oxbow, the second-most points in Vermont history and was the 1995 and 1996 Vermont Gatorade player of the year and Burlington Free Press "Miss Basketball." She led Oxbow to three trips to the state championship game capturing the 1993 D-II title and the 1995 D-III crown. Her first collegiate season, she led Nevada in scoring and was named to the Big West All-Rookie Team, and at North Carolina, she was a regular as the Tar Heels reached the 2000 ACC title game and advanced to the 2000 NCAA Sweet 16.

JOHN KOERNER

Multi-sport/soccer

A standout soccer star who was the all-time leading scorer at Champlain Valley Union High School and at the University of Vermont. He also excelled in ice hockey, tennis, track and golf, playing five varsity sports at CVU, graduating in 1974. A three-time all-conference and all-New England soccer forward at UVM, he helped the Catamounts to its first two trips to the NCAA men's soccer tournament in 1975 and 1977. A state and regional junior tennis champion, he also was an all-state hockey forward at CVU, scoring over 100 career goals, and was the state’s schoolboy scoring champion three straight years.

DOUG LEWIS

Alpine Skiing

A two-time Olympic alpine skier and two-time national champion in downhill, Middlebury's Lewis raced in the downhill for the U.S. in the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics and also competed in the 1988 Olympic Games before retiring that winter. He became the first American male to reach the podium in the World Championships downhill with a third-place finish in 1985 in Bormio, Italy. He won his first of two national downhill titles in 1986 and came in second in a 1986 World Cup race in Argentina. A graduate from the Green Mountain Valley School in Waitsfield and UVM, Lewis also is an alpine skiing color commentator on NBC and Universal Sports.

BOB MOLINATTI

Para-athlete

Molinatti, who attended school in Colchester and Essex, became a noteworthy para-athlete, winning major marathons after he sustained a spinal cord injury in an automobile accident in 1978.  He won the Los Angeles Marathon in 1986 and 1988, and represented the U.S. at the 1988 Paralympic Games in Seoul, finishing fourth in the marathon, and the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics. During his 43 years in a wheelchair, Molinatti built careers as both an athlete and in sports broadcast journalism. He is the first para-athlete to be inducted into the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame.

MORGAN VALLEY

Basketball

Former Rice star Morgan Valley is one of 12 inductees for this year's Vermont Sports Hall of Fame class.
Former Rice star Morgan Valley is one of 12 inductees for this year's Vermont Sports Hall of Fame class.

A two-time Burlington Free Press "Miss Basketball" and Vermont Gatorade player of the year, Valley led Rice Memorial High School to back-to-back undefeated seasons in her junior and senior years, scoring a school-record 1,363 points. Highly recruited, she headed to perennial Division I power Connecticut, where she was a reserve on three NCAA title-winning teams. Also an all-state soccer goalie at Rice, she has been an assistant or head coach at the NCAA D-I level since 2004, and is currently an assistant at UConn.  Valley will also be inducted into this year's Vermont Principals' Association Hall of Fame.

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THOMAS DUNKLEY

Gymnastics (coach/administrator)

Dunkley is the 2023 David Hakins inductee for exceptional promotion and development of sports and athletics in the Green Mountain State. Dubbed the "Father of Vermont Gymnastics," he introduced the sport to the state at both the collegiate and high school level, starting the UVM gymnastics program in 1966 and in 1967, initiated the Vermont high school state championships. With his family, Dunkley started the state’s first full time gymnastics club and in 1973, created Vermont’s first overnight gymnastics camp that is still running today.

ANDY GARDINER

Media (sportswriting)

The 2023 Mal Boright inductee, Gardiner is a talented sportswriter who he served Vermont for over 25 years along with close to two decades at the national level with USA Today. He gave the same quality coverage to whatever sport he covered at any level, local or national. Gardiner was named Vermont sportswriter of the year four times with the Burlington Free Press and covered 10 Olympic Games with the USA Today team starting with the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary. He also has been a contributor to Vermont Public Radio.

Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter: @aabrami5.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont Sports Hall of Fame: 2023 class, ceremony induction info