Baseball pitcher Joe Johnson and football standout Justin Strzelczyk are among eight athletes who will be inducted into the University of Maine Sports Hall of Fame this fall.
Other honorees include track All-American Corey Conner, runner Jerry Ellis, soccer players Heather Hathorn Driscoll and Ben Spike, field hockey standout Kelly Newton, and the 1965 Tangerine Bowl football team.
The class will be inducted into the 205-member hall during a dinner and ceremony at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 13 at Jeff’s Catering in Brewer, Maine.
Johnson was a second-round draft pick of the Atlanta Braves in 1982 who played three years in the major leagues for the Braves and Toronto Blue Jays. He was an NCAA Regional Co-MVP for the Black Bears and competed in three College World Series, compiling an 18-10 career record.
Strzelczyk, who will be honored posthumously, was 10-year NFL veteran after being drafted in the 11th round of the 1990 draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers, including an appearance in Super Bowl XXX in 1995. He played in 133 NFL games.
As a tight end and defensive end at UMaine, he earned All-Conference first-team and All-America status, and helped the Black Bears win Yankee Conference titles in 1987 and 1989. Strzelczyk died in a car crash in 2004 at age 36.
Conner was a 10-time America East champion and a two-time U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-American at UMaine who was the first Black Bear female athlete to compete in five NCAA Championship events.
Conner holds seven school records including the 1,500, 3,000, 5,000 and 10,000 meters outdoors, and the mile, 3K and 5K indoors. She also holds the America East outdoor record in the 5,000 meters (15 minutes, 59.66 seconds). In June she will run in the 2019 Trail World Championships in Portugal.
Ellis was a nine-time letterwinner and two-time Maine State Champion in the mile in 1963 and 1964. The 1964 graduate captained cross-country and the indoor and outdoor track teams as a senior.
He was the runner-up in the 1963 Yankee Conference cross-country championship and placed fourth in the 1962 IC4A Cross Country Championships. Ellis served as a captain in the U.S. Army and was the recipient of two Bronze Stars for his service during the Vietnam War.
Hathorn owns Black Bear women’s soccer records for career goals (35) and points (84). She led UMaine to three consecutive America East title games and helped it post a 44-23-7 record in four seasons.
Hathorn went on to play two seasons for the SoccerPlus CT Reds of the Women’s Professional Soccer League, winning the U23 National Championship in 2007. She later served as an assistant coach at UC Irvine and Stony Brook.
Newton was a three-time America East all-conference first-team field hockey selection who was named the 2010 America East Offensive Player of the Year after posting 19 goals and seven assists. She led the Black Bears in total points each of her four seasons.
At the time of her graduation in 2013, Newton held UMaine records for career goals (57), assists (49) and points (169), points (51) and assists in a season (25), and points in a game (10). She was twice named a National Field Hockey Coaches’ Association third-team All-American.
Spike (Class of ’89) established six men’s soccer school records, including career goals (26) and points (58). He captained UMaine’s only North Atlantic Conference championship team in 1988 and was named All-New England in 1987.
The 1965 football team went 8-1, won the Yankee Conference championship and is the only team in UMaine history to appear in a Bowl game. The squad, coached by Harold Westerman, won the YanCon title (5-0) and was awarded the Lambert Cup, awarded to the top team in the East’s lower tier.
The Class of 2019 Hall of Famers was selected by the M Club and approved by UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy and Athletic Director Ken Ralph.
For more information on the banquet, contact Aysha Vear at 207-581-1146 or aysha.vear@maine.edu