Hall inducts 2005 members

NEEDHAM, Mass. - There were Boston College football helmets in the glass cases lining the halls of the hotel, alumni giving cheers to the celebratory cause, and handshakes accompanying backslaps. Banners dressed the walls in maroon and gold, an atmosphere of memory engulfed the ballroom.

It was a Sunday morning in Needham, the day after a home football game. Friday night, the BC football team stayed in the hotel, spending its usual night before a home game off campus. Each week the Eagles go there to focus before Saturday competitions. On this day, however, the only BC athletes in attendance were there to celebrate their post-game days.

A kicker and a quarterback stood in the hall, but their names were not Quinton Porter or William Troost. Instead, John S. Cooper, BC '82, and Glenn Foley, BC '93, stood in their suits. Former BC football player and current voice of the Eagles on the radio, Peter Cronan, BC '77, and Ray Perrone, BC '80, president of the Varsity Club, stood at the microphone. They were the football representatives in the football hotel, but they were not the only sport in town. Also in attendance were Dana Barros of men's basketball; Leslie Bjerstedt Shearstone, BC '89, of women's basketball; Joe Augustine, BC '79, of men's hockey; Charlie Marso's son in honor of his father from the baseball program; Joy Ramsbotham, BC '99, of field hockey; Angie Graham Hollins, BC '98, of cross country and track and field; Ken Daly of rugby, and Peter Spaulding, BC '98, who left his sailboat in time to be inducted.

This was their induction day into the BC Varsity Club's Hall of Fame. They were 10 in total, seven men and three women.

Throughout the luncheon, they each got to thank their coaches and parents, teachers and teammates. The stage was theirs for the day, just as the fields, courts, and ice once served as their performance platforms.

Each hall inductee remembered what brought them to the Jesuit school in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Some were recruited hard. Others were hardly recruited. Nonetheless, whether gray-haired or still in game shape, they all remember. They can recite pep talks given by coaches, game statistics that only scorekeepers should know, and character-building losses.

The youngest of the group is Ramsbotham. She graduated in 1999 and remembers her collegiate years well. "BC helped me to find who I am," Ramsbotham said. "Athletics parallels life in the real world."

But she only got to realize that after a few bumps along the recruiting road when she was a high school senior looking to take her field hockey stick and game to BC. Nominated to the Hall by her old coach, Sherren Granese, Ramsbotham told of her recruiting trip to campus, and how it took a little longer than originally anticipated. First she had been asked to come down and see a BC/Notre Dame football game. But there were conflicts, and she wound up coming to see the Temple game instead. BC beat the Owls, and Ramsbotham came to Chestnut Hill.

By the time Ramsbotham was a senior in the fall of 1998, the team won the Big East's regular season title and earned an NCAA berth. Her career totaled 100 points, including 41 goals and 18 assists.

Joining Ramsbotham from the women's side of the hall were Graham Hollins and Bjerstedt Shearstone. Both talked about their individual accomplishments, of which Graham Hollins holds seven records for BC track. Apparently, she never stopped running in Franklin Park and continued north to Toronto, where she now resides with her husband.

Shearstone, who scored 1,084 points and is 13th on the all-time scoring list for BC, played in 114 games, which ranks her sixth highest in the school's record books.

"To see how far athletics has come under Gene DeFilippo and the progress of women's sports is truly amazing since I graduated," Shearstone said.

The women weren't the only ones talking about their glory days. Barros and John Cooper gave recognition to their coaches and the effects that BC had on them.

Cooper, who kicked the longest punt in school history now lives in Houston, and he talked about the family-oriented athletics department.

Barros, a 13-year veteran of the NBA who now runs his own sports complex in Mansfield, talked of his memories growing up watching BC basketball and how he planned to carry on the traditions of John Bagley and Michael Adams.

For hockey, University of Rhode Island head coach and former Eagle, Augustine reflected on his days under Len Ceglarski.

"Well, my family is 100 percent Polish. My mother found out that I'd have a nice Polish coach at BC so that took care of that," Augustine said.

In place of Charlie Marso, his son spoke for the alumnus from 1936. Marso was a disabled player who had a stub of an arm, but still fielded and batted, making a name for himself on the diamond.

The two picks that most showed a shift for more inclusion of overall sports in the Varsity Club Hall were Spaulding and Daly. Spaulding sailed in the Athens Olympic games and Daly has been involved with BC rugby from 1968 to the present.

By the time all the speeches were done, the feeling was clear. The Hall of Faners felt at home back with BC. They remembered their days, and let others learn about them, too.