It was a fun evening of stories and memories as four people took their place in the Guelph Sports Hall of Fame.
Paul Ante, David Clutchy, Pat teBoekhorst, and Danielle Everitt-Sinclair were officially inducted in a ceremony held at the Italian Canadian Club in Guelph on Wednesday night.
“It’s exciting and humbling, something you’d think would never happen,” said Ante, who was inducted as a builder for his work with the Guelph Royals and the sport of baseball.
Ante still helps coach the Royals in the Intercounty Baseball League and continues to operate baseball clinics.
“I think it’s the longevity. It’s nice when you hear you had an impact on those you’ve coached.”
Clutchy also went in as a builder. He co-founded the Guelph Marlins Swim Club in 1968 and was the club’s first coach and only volunteer head coach in the club’s history.
Another builder was teBoekhort, who was spent most of her life teaching people how to skate. She worked at the Guelph Figure Skating Club as coach and technical director, and later became a power skating coach, helping hockey players improve their skating.
“To be in the company of all these inductees is truly incredible,” teBoekhorst said.
She said she was both shocked and delighted after learning she was going into the Guelph Sports Hall of Fame.
Everitt-Sinclair was the only athlete to be inducted in this year’s class. She excelled in basketball where she spent three seasons with the McMaster Marauders and two with the Victoria Vikes where she was part of the team’s national women’s championship in 2003.
“It was a little bit of a surprise and out of the blue,” Everitt-Sinclair said when she first heard about the news of her induction.
“The city of Guelph and the experiences I had here meant a lot to me.”
Everitt-Sinclair is currently the head coach of the women’s basketball team at Carleton University in Ottawa where the Ravens recently captured their second straight U Sports title.
While the four members are going in for different sports, there is some connection between them.
“Pat teBoekhorst, I coached her son,” Ante said. “Danielle played softball with Dave Vallance, who I coached and played with, and Dave Clutchy’s wife was a teacher at GCVI when I was there.”
The ceremony was part of the Kiwanis Sports Celebrity Dinner. Several guests appeared at the event, among them sports journalist Steve Milton, former Team Canada women’s hockey player Vicky Sunohara, former Hamilton Tiger-Cat linebacker Simoni Lawrence, cyclist Kiara Lylyk, and triathlete Sasha Beck.
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