After a 10-year absence, Saint Anselm Athletics has announced that they will be re-establishing the Saint Anselm College Athletic Hall of Fame.

It was originally established in 1980 to honor distinguished Saint Anselm student-athletes, teams, coaches and administrators.

When asked what caused the 10-year gap in Hall of Fame classes, Associate Athletic Director Mitch Capelle stated that it was likely due to “a lot of transition and changeover within [Hawk] Athletics over the last 10 years or so.”

Capelle went on to say that re-establishing the Hall of Fame became “a priority” when both he and Daron Montgomery, Director of Athletics, first arrived at St. A’s this past year.

Capelle said that many members of the Saint Anselm community expressed concern that “there was not a mechanism in place to honor our contributors and former student-athletes, so we wanted to be able to do that.”

There have been 25 Hall of Fame classes, totaling over 100 people inducted. The Hall of Fame Class of 2007 was the last group to be selected, but they were never officially inducted. According to the Saint Anselm Athletics website, there is a formal induction ceremony for that class tentatively scheduled for Feb. 11, 2017.

The 2007 student-athlete inductees are Ed Gorman ’79 of men’s basketball, Frank McBride ’90 of men’s soccer, and Annamaria Addonzio ’97 of softball. In addition, Nick Gabardina will be inducted in as a special recognition for his work as both a scorekeeper for the basketball teams, and his tenure as the St. A’s baseball coach from 1979-1986 and 1989.

Capelle also mentioned that Chris Madigan ’90, a member of the St. A’s Hall of Fame Class of 1996, will be recognized at this ceremony for being inducted into the Northeast-10 Conference Hall of Fame this past summer. As a member of the 1990 St. A’s men’s basketball team, Madigan led the Hawks to a conference title, and he was named the NE-10 Championship Most Valuable Player.

Moving forward, Capelle told The Crier that the next step in the Hall of Fame re-establishment is to form a Hall of Fame committee.

“We need to pull some people together who have some knowledge of the history of Hawks Athletics, and get a committee meeting together where we can start to get a list of names to figure out who we can induct and who we should be honoring,” Capelle added.

This committee is hoping to be able to select a Hall of Fame Class of 2017, with the intention of inducting the group into the Hall of Fame at the ceremony scheduled for February of 2017.