Nineteen athletes of a bygone era, including coaches, basketball players, and an entire track team, were the inaugural class to be inducted into UMass Boston’s Athletics Hall of Fame.

Held in the Clark Athletic Center, the first annual Hall of Fame dinner took many back to the days when UMass Boston was not yet fully UMass Boston, but Boston State College, which merged with UMB in 1982.

Director of Athletics Charlie Titus provided introductory remarks, calling it an “evening of history.”

Dan Rea, WBZ 4 News’s Emmy Award-winning reporter, presided as Master of Ceremonies. Rea, a 1970 graduate and hockey player at Boston State College, praised Titus, since it was under him that “We realized what an important part of our education athletics is-to play as a team, to learn teamwork, to learn courage, to learn how tough it is to win, and how hard it is to lose.

“Those were life lessons,” he said, lessons that served him when he became a reporter. Rea took the opportunity to pay a small tribute to a hockey teammate of his, Paul Latini. Latini went on to become a firefighter, and died fighting a fire in Boston, which Rea had the “misfortune to cover.”

Chancellor Jo Ann Gora took to the podium next. “What an extraordinary group of talent. These individuals exemplify through their athletic achievements… the full use of one’s power to achieve excellence,” she said of the inductees, “[They’re] role models for all of us.”

Gora spoke over the clatter of forks and knives. People were encouraged to eat through the speeches and presentations as part of an effort to move the program along and get people home in time to catch some of the Red Sox-Yankees match-up that night, the first of the playoff series.

“Excellence on the playing field inspires all of us,” Gora continued. “[It] creates a sense of community, it creates pride in the schools… [it] inspires us to do our very best no matter where we are, no matter what the nature of the playing field is.”

The playing field, at least metaphorically, is also in the classroom and the community. Gora noted that in the 2002-03 academic year, 55% of student-athletes had a grade point average of 3.0 or higher. “As chancellor, this is something I take special pride in,” she said, adding that for the fourth consecutive year, the athletics department was named number one in the nation for community service by a national consortium.

Six of the original sixteen members of the 1985-86 Indoor Track & Field and 1986 Outdoor Track & Field made it onto the stage to receive their Hall of Fame awards, far away from the little track above the gym, “barely bigger than a basketball court,” where they practiced to win their indoor and outdoor championships.

Genesia Eddins, a member of both teams, was individually honored for her accomplishments in UMass Boston’s Indoor Track and Field (1984-1988) and Outdoor Track and Field (1985-1988). Eddins thanked Titus and called her time spent at UMass Boston “fabulous,” saying that coming to UMass from an inner-city school made her feel like an ordinary person who was “allowed to do extraordinary things.” During her four-year career, she managed to snag eight NCAA individual championships, among others.

Recalling his time at Boston State and UMass Boston, where he was a star point guard for the men’s basketball team, John “Boo” Rice said they were “some of the best times of my life,” adding, to the laughter of the crowd, “the best shape of my life,” as well. Rice was drafted by the Boston Celtics after his college years, and is the only UMB player to have his number retired.

Fellow Celtic Wayne Embry, the keynote speaker, regaled the crowd with tales of his times with the Cincinnati Royals, the Celtics, and the Milwaukee Bucks.

Hall of Fame induction wasn’t the only festivity on the menu. The crowd of a hundred or so people, made up of alumni of Boston State and UMass Boston, stood up and sung Happy Birthday to another of the inductees, Eileen Fenton. The day was also named in honor of her by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, a UMass Boston alumnus, but who could not make it that night due to an out-of-town engagement.

During Fenton’s years at UMass Boston as part of the women’s basketball team (1987-91), she created three school records, held eleven, and ranks second on the UMass Boston career-scoring list with 1,516 points. She is the only UMass Boston women’s basketball player to have her number retired.

James Allen, UMass Boston’s greenhouse manager, was honored with the Internal Community Service Award, for his “outstanding job beautifying the campus” and “pleasant demeanor,” as Charlie Titus put it. The Internal Community Service Award is given to honor those who work on campus in service to it and the community.

Ed Barry, founder of the men’s ice hockey program at Boston State in 1962, as well as the Codfish Bow, the second oldest college hockey invitational in the nation, was the last one of the evening to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. He coached through its best times, the finest said to be in the 1965-66 season, where his team finished with a perfect 20-0 record, making them one of three schools to finish undefeated at the collegiate level.

“It’s not about me,” he said upon accepting the award. “It’s about the hundreds of kids who played hockey at Boston State.”

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