The Athol Royalston Athletic Association and Athol High School announced that nine former athletes, four teams, one contributor and one coach will comprise its 2023 Hall of Fame class.

William Modzeleski (class of 1926), Kaija Miettinen (1962), Steve Fredette (1970), Abby Winters (1979), Sue LaRose (1987), Jennifer Linker (1996), Ryan Fregeau (1999), Abbey LaFond (2000) and Sean Sullivan (2002) make up the Hall of Fame player inductees. Bob Barcomb will be inducted as a contributor while Mike King was selected to be inducted as a coach. The 1926 Athol football team, the 1938 Athol baseball team, the 1973 Athol softball team and the 1986-87 softball teams will also be inducted. 

This is the fifth Hall of Fame class to be inducted, the previous being in 2007, 2010, 2014 and 2018. The induction ceremony is set to take place on Nov. 24 at the Colonial Hotel in Gardner. 

“Every Hall of Fame class we’ve had has been strong,” Athol athletic director and Hall of Fame committee member Dan Bevis said. “You hear the stories, see the accolades and it’s impressive. I’m proud of this class. I was in school with some of them and got to witness it first hand. It’s a great process of gathering the info on all these great athletes.” 

Here’s some background on the inductees: Modzeleski starred on the Athol football and baseball teams, Miettinen played both field hockey and basketball, Fredette competed in football, basketball and baseball, Winters also played football, basketball and baseball and LaRose was a member of the 1986 Athol field hockey team that won the state championship as well as competing in both basketball and softball. 

Linker was a field hockey, basketball and softball player, Fregeau played boys soccer while holding multiple school records on the track, LaFond played basketball, volleyball and competed on the track team while Sullivan played soccer, volleyball and is the all-time leading scorer in Athol basketball history. 

Athol’s 1926 football team finished with a 9-1 record while averaging 28.6 points per game while giving up just 52 points on the season. The 1938 Bear baseball team made it to the state finals where they fell to Brockton at Fenway, the 1973 Athol softball team finished the season as unbeaten league champs and were the first girls team at Athol to win a league title while the 1986-87 girls basketball team at Athol won the Western Mass. title before falling to North Attleboro in the state title game. 

Barcomb made it in as a contributor after coaching middle school soccer and football at Athol while managing the clock at the high school basketball games for years and also running the intramural boys and girls golf program. 

King was the coach of Athol’s 1986-87 girls basketball team and the Athol Regional Middle School gym is dedicated to him. 

The HOF committee — a five member group — wanted to do induct a Hall of Fame class every four or five years to make sure it was prestigious and to assure that the players, teams and coaches inducted would all be worthy of the honor. 

Bevis says they accomplished that this year, with everyone set to be inducted more than deserving. 

“We want this to be prestigious,” Bevis said. “We didn’t want it to be something where everyone got in. To do that and do the process properly we though every four years would be good. There’s a lot of work that goes into this and I would like to personally thank the members of the Hall of Fame Committee for their work in researching and gathering information and helping to select the class of 2023. This would not be possible without their contributions.” 

Bevis says he is proud of the fact that the HOF committee was able to hit on multiple different eras in Athol’s history, not just inducting recent athletes. 

“We take all the nominations that come in, split off the names and come up with a huge list of who we thought would be deserving,” Bevis said. “From there we started narrowing it down. We wanted to get some of the older teams in and hit from each generation. That was our goal. We wanted to stretch it across multiple decades and that’s something they’ve done consistently on the committee.” 

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