The New England Basketball Hall of Fame dinner and ceremony has become one of the most meaningful sports gatherings in the United States. We believe our last two gatherings, June 2013 and August 2015, may well have been the largest sports dinners in America in those years. We hold the dinner every few years, so as to reach a main objective, which is for the dinner to serve as a major reunion of the New England basketball community. We hosted approximately 1,800 attendees at each of our last two gatherings.
The 2013 ceremony featured the following:
Afternoon panels and evening induction featured the likes of renowned Kentucky men’s basketball coach, John Calipari, famed novelist, Harlan Coben (an outstanding scholar-athlete basketball player at Amherst), famed journalists such as Bob Ryan and Bill Reynolds, renowned motivational speaker and former high school, college and NBA player, Chris Herren, other former NBA players such as Chris Dudley, Togo Palazzi and Michael Adams, as well as Scholar-Athlete Inductee, Senator Scott Brown. A highlight was the induction of the legendary All-American Redheads professional women’s basketball team; and we were fortunate to honor WNBA star Carolyn Jones-Young, great UCONN Associate Coach, Chris Dailey, and ICONs Susan Summons and Christina Wielgus. The famed jazz musicians Dezron Douglas Quartet performed.
The 2015 ceremony featured the following:
An overflow crowd enjoyed a Friday, August 7 evening at St. Mary’s High School, the iconic gymnasium of the legendary 1964 St. Mary’s High New England Championship Team. Watch the highlights of a grand evening, which included the first annual New England Basketball Hall of Fame Scholar-Athlete Game.
Saturday’s activities included four outstanding panel discussions: (Click on the name to watch video of the panel.)
Dave Cowens
Jim Sweeney
David Thompson
Bill Lee:
These panels were followed by a dinner and ceremony which featured “The Show.” “The Show” involved gifted young dancers from the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts performing two theme-based songs. In the background of each song were pictorials of photos of inductees and their families. Watch highlights of “The Show”.