BEVERLY — The stories they shared were as legendary as the athletes themselves.
The inductees into the 18th annual Beverly High School Sports Hall of Fame, which took place before a packed house at the Beverly-Peabody Elks Lodge #1039 Saturday night, shared memorable tales and the lessons they’ve taken with them since wearing the Panther colors.
There was field hockey and ice hockey superstar Nicole Woods, recounting how her father Jack managed to watch games that she and her sister (and fellow inductee) Corinne played in two different countries … on the same day. There was the school’s first 1,000 point scorer in girls basketball, Laura Sullivan, imploring the packed audience to “please be a part of someone’s village, particularly a child or adolescent”, the same way she had growing up in the Garden City.
There was Fred Paglia, a soccer great who helped Beverly reach the 1979 Division 1 state final, who came up with his family from his home in Tampa, recalling how he left Beverly High with a PhD: “Passionate, Hungry and Driven.” Running phenom shared how she school choiced into Beverly High as a sophomore, wanting to be part of the school’s unparalleled track and field program. There was Connor Irving, who admitted growing up he “couldn’t wait to be in the Orange-and-Black” and always remembered the words of wisdom his legendary coach, Bob Gilligan, would preach: playing hockey is a privilege.
A dozen former athletic greats and two championship teams were enshrined on this evening. They included Adler’s classmate, close friend and fellow running superstar, Millie Chapman (who is working in Zurich, Switzerland and was represented by her parents at the event); football, indoor track and lacrosse ace Brendan Flaherty; famed soccer and track whiz Caitlin Harty; gymnastics wunderkind Sarah Rood; storied coaches Jack Hilton (track and field) and Dave Wilbur (baseball and football), and both the 1982 girls track team and the 1982-83 boys indoor track squad.
Master of Ceremonies Bernie Stavis — a 2010 BHS Hall of Fame inductee — kept the evening running smoothly after dinner by introducing each new member of the Hall, then listened along with the rest of those in attendance to the rapt stories that were shared.
The Woods sisters played field hockey, ice hockey and lacrosse together for one season, when Corinne (Class of 2011) was a senior and Nicole (Class of 2014) a freshman. Now married, they both treasured the recollections from those days 14 years ago.
“Playing three sports with Nicole as a senior was the highlight of my entire athletic career. So going in together makes it that much sweeter,” said Corinne, who went on to play Division 1 field hockey at Bryant University and is now a police officer in her hometown. “Nicole’s skills were just unbelievable.”
“It’s been a long time since we’ve done anything athletic together,” added Nicole, a former University of Louisville field hockey star who also played for the U.S. National Field Hockey team. “We were competitive and made each other better by competing non-stop. But we were never rivals.”
Adler, who like Chapman graduated in 2010, was a High School All-American in the mile and both an All-State and Division 2 champion in the event. The bond she made with her teammates created many lifelong friendships; she said that many of their own young children are around the same age and they meet up for playdates.
“We took our academics and athletics seriously to where it became normalized,” Chapman, now a nurse, said. “It’s a personality type, too, where you have to love running. I certainly did.”
Irving, whose game-winning goal in the third period of the 2014 Division 2 state championship game gave Beverly its first (and to date, only), boys state hockey title, comes from a prominent hockey family in the city. The program’s all-time leading scorer with 198 points, he admitted the call informing him he was going into the Hall of Fame was a surprise.
“We’re all still best friends,” Irving, who now calls Wells, Maine, home, said of his Panther teammates. “We see each other all the time … although we play more golf than hockey now.”
Arguably the school’s greatest-ever gymnast, Rood (now Timson), recalls her four years at Beverly High as “the most fun in my life.” An excellent student, she also left her mark on the mats by helping the Orange-and-Black to one state championship and a pair of second place finishes, emphasizing Saturday that “my team won the state championship, not me.”
Flaherty (Class of 2013), is regarded as one of the school’s all-time gridiron greats, leading the Panthers to Super Bowl titles in 2010 and 2012 and one whose school records for career touchdowns (61) and points (380) will not be broken anytime soon. He was also an All-American in lacrosse and a burner on the indoor tracks during the winter months.
“My dad (Tim) is a Hall of Famer and my mom (Anne) has given so much to the school as an athletic trainer, so at an early age it was very engrained in me what it meant to play sports at Beverly High,” Flaherty said. “I felt so much pride putting on the jersey and representing the city and my school.”
Harty, who graduated No. 2 in the Class of 2014, recalled her soccer team beating Central Catholic in penalty kicks (2-1) in 2012 for the school’s first-ever Division 1 North title in girls soccer program history. One of the all-time offensive powerhouses for Beverly, she was also unbeaten as a senior on the track.
Sullivan, a Class of 2000 graduate, recalled fondly how she, her teammates and even parents had to sign a contract “for the privilege to play for Coach Fortch”, referring to girls basketball coach John Fortunato, which ultimately led to her being a three-time Northeastern Conference all-star and becoming the first BHS hoop squad to go 18-0 in league play as a senior.
Paglia gave the night’s most moving speech, thanking his former soccer coaches, the late Bill ‘Buzz’ Foley and Todd Lampert (who was in attendance Saturday) who taught him “’we’ is the most important word in the English language, not ‘I’”. Both men impacted the Class of 1980 graduate greatly, said Paglia, now the President of Kraft Foodservices in North America.
Hilton, the evening’s first inductee, had remarkable success with his boys track teams between 1976-82. He drew a hearty chuckle from the audience when he equated coaching to being in a marriage: “you have to make all the major decisions.”
Wilbur, one of the most respected coaches in Beverly High history, was the head baseball coach for 17 years from 2002-18 and won 225 games, three NEC crowns, two Division 2 North titles and one state title game appearance. He was also an assistant football coach for many years and stressed “there’s no Hall of Fame without the players”, collectively thanking all who played for him and that he was “an honor and privilege to coach them.”
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