Two record-breaking track and field athletes, both Olympians, broke away from the competition to headline the inductees in the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame's 2016 class announced Monday by a selection panel.
Janay DeLoach of Fairbanks, the 2012 Olympic bronze medalist in the long jump, and Don Clary of Anchorage, a 1984 Olympic semifinalist in the 5,000 meters, earned spots as the only two individuals in the 2016 class.
Two "moments" gained admission to the hall too — Matt Carle's 2006 Hobey Baker Award as the top collegiate hockey player in the nation, and the Special Olympics World Games in Anchorage in 2001. Carle, an Anchorage native, won collegiate hockey's most prestigious award while skating for the University of Denver. He's gone on to an 11-season NHL career and currently skates for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Native Youth Olympics, which began in 1971, was the "event" inducted.
'Very close'
"It was a very robust discussion (Sunday) — we spent three hours locked in a room," said Bob Eley, Hall of Fame selection panel chair. "There weren't any quick votes and everybody got their say … It was a very good discussion. When the voting came down, it was very close."
The hall of fame inductees were voted on by a nine-member panel with a public vote counting as the equivalent of one panel-member vote. Harlow Robinson, the hall of fame's executive director, said nearly 1,700 people voted on the hall of fame web page.
"Once again we've arrived at a great class. The hardest thing is saying 'no.' It would be easy to bring in larger classes, but we felt strong about keeping the class size small," Robinson said, noting that as many as five individuals could have been inducted.
"We look at the people that just missed and we know we'll have some great inductees in future years," he said.
10th anniversary
This was the 10th class to enter the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, and Robinson said he has something special planned for 2016. The organization will host events July 28 and 29 with previous hall of fame inductees coming to Anchorage to celebrate the 10-year anniversary.
"We're inviting every living, breathing inductee to come and attend," Robinson said. "Our goal is to have them all here."
Robinson said the July 28 event will take place at the Alaska Airlines Center and will be open to families wishing to meet the inductees and get autographs. The July 29 induction of this year's class will take place at Bill Sheffield Alaska Railroad Depot at the Anchorage International Airport.
The latter will include a red carpet walk-through of all the inductees in attendance, Robinson said.
Details about the events will emerge in the coming months. Here's more on the inductees:
Leaping farther
DeLoach started long jumping at Eielson High near Fairbanks and landed on the Olympic podium.
She made her case for greatest track star in Alaska history with a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympic in London in the long jump and a silver medal at the world indoor championships the same year. She also won four U.S. championships.
In 2013, a broken ankle hardly slowed DeLoach. She had to switch her starting position to her right leg due to the injury and became the first woman to jump 6.95 meters off both legs.
The crazy part? She can still add to her resume. DeLoach is signed with sponsor Nike and trains in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she was a four-time NCAA All-American at Colorado State.
DeLoach was a four-time Alaska state champion for Eielson and still holds the long jump record of 19 feet, 5 inches that she set in 2003.
Making history
Clary, an East High graduate, was the first Alaskan runner to qualify for the Olympics when he competed in 1984 in Los Angeles.
Prior to competing on the world's biggest stage, the distance runner was a three-time NCAA All-American at Oregon, where he helped his cross-country team to a 1977 national championship.
In Alaska, Clary holds a prep state record in the two-mile race (9:04.04) that has been untouched for 40 years. He also beat former Boston Marathon winner Alberto Salazar to win the Alaska 10-K Classic in 1986 before breaking the course record the next year.
Meaningful moments
In 2006, Carle decided to rewrite the college hockey history books.
He became the first defenseman to win the Hobey Baker Award in his junior year and the first player to win the Western Collegiate Hockey Association's Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year honors.
Carle led the nation in assists that year with 42 and led defenseman in points with 53. He is the only Alaskan and University of Denver player to with the Hobey Baker Award.
"On a personal note, I was actually a voter for the Hobey Baker Award," said Danny Martin, a Hall of Fame selection panel member and sports editor at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. "It's not only the most prestigious award in college hockey, it's one of the most prestigious awards in all of college athletics."
Earlier in the decade, Anchorage hosted the 2001 Special Olympics World Games — the largest international sporting event ever staged in Alaska. More than 1,800 Special Olympians competed in seven different events at venues throughout the city.
"The 2001 Special Olympics Winter Games will … never be forgotten," Eley said.
Native Youth Olympics
In 1971, a group of Anchorage teachers decided rural students going to school in the city needed an event to give them a taste of home.
The teachers, led by Sarah Hanuske, started the Native Youth Olympics with 100 students in its inaugural year. Now, the 40-plus-year event is a statewide competition and has grown to more than 2,000 students.
The NYO feature traditional Native games that test strength, courage and discipline.
"It's slowly grown from an Anchorage event to a statewide competition where you have participants actually practicing year-round," Eley said. "We felt it was a very worthy event and it placed well above all of the many others that we had to discuss."
Contact Stephan Wiebe at swiebe@alaskadispatch.com