Two former Olympians from Alaska are now heading into the state’s Hall of Fame.
Don Clary and Janay DeLoach headline this year’s inductions, which were announced by the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame during a Monday press conference.
“The selection panel and the public voters had extremely difficult decisions to make and settled on a great group,” said Alaska Sports Hall of Fame Executive Director Harlow Robinson. “This class shines a light the great track and field tradition in our state, but as a whole, I think really reflects on the tremendous diversity of the sports culture in Alaska.”
Clary, described by the voting body as arguably “Alaska’s greatest runner,” was the first runner from Alaska to qualify for the Olympics. He competed during the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles and later advanced to the Olympic semifinals. Two years later he defeated former Boston Marathon winner Alberto Salazar in the Alaska 10K Classic, and a year after that set the current course record of 28:35.
Clary won two state cross country titles, setting the high school record in the two-mile run with a time of 9:04.04, while attending East Anchorage High School. He then went on to become a three-time NCAA All-American at the University of Oregon. He was a member of the school’s 1977 team that captured a national championship.
DeLoach is considered one of Alaska’s best track and field athletes and had a successful career as a long jumper, earning four U.S. championships, a Worlds silver medal and Olympic bronze medal during the 2012 games. After breaking her left ankle in 2013, DeLoach still qualified for the World Championships and became the first woman to ever jump 6.95 meters off either leg.
She was a four-time NCAA All-American at Colorado State University. DeLoach spent her high school career at Eilson High School, where she was a four-time long jump state champion and set the current record of 19 feet, 15 inches.
Two hall of fame “moments” also were honored. The first is when Matt Carle won the Hobey Baker Award in 2006, given to the best college hockey player in the nation. Carle was the first Alaskan to win the honor, as well as the first University of Denver to earn the award.
Carle, a junior defenseman, led the nation with 42 assists that season and was the number one defenseman in points (53). He also was selected the Western Collegiate Hockey Association’s Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year — a first in league history.
The other hall of fame moment went to the 2001 Special Olympics World Winter Games, which “invigorated Anchorage with the largest international sporting event ever staged in Alaska. More than 1,800 Special Olympians competed in seven different events at venues throughout the city,” according to the selection panel.
The event honored this year went to the Native Youth Olympics, which began in 1971 and featured a variety of traditional Native games testing athletes’ strength, courage and discipline.
“Native games had long been a custom in rural Alaska before the NYO competition was founded by a group of Anchorage teachers organized by Sarah Hanuske, a coordinator for the state’s boarding home program,” the panel said in a statement. “The idea of creating a statewide competition was to give the relocated students living with strangers in Anchorage a taste of home because prior to NYO they had no real connection with where they came from during the school year.”
The inaugural NYO included more than 100 students. Since then it has grown to include more than 2,000 Alaska youth.
The selections were made by a nine-member board consisting of sports journalists and coaches from Alaska. The 10th vote was determined by more than 1,700 people who participated in a public voting process.
