BERNE — The athletes and coaches who melded a community will be honored on Oct. 9 as the Berne-Knox-Westerlo Sports Hall of Fame inducts its first class.

“These are forgotten people of the past,” said Dennis Barber, chairman of the committee that selected the inaugural class. The other members of the committee are BKW teachers and graduates Thomas Galvin, who coaches girls’ basketball, and Andy Wright, until recently the boys’ basketball coach who was let go by the school board and now coaches at Middleburgh.

“Sports is a big thing in a small community,” said Barber, a 1973 BKW graduate who competed in cross-country and track.

“We wanted to do it right and go back to the beginning,” he said.

Berne-Knox, before part of Westerlo joined the district, entered the Schoharie Valley League in 1939 for boys’ basketball, soccer, and baseball.

The Wildcats, as they were called then, wore uniforms of gold and blue. BKW’s Wildcat was traded for a Bulldog in the early 1950s, and blue was replaced with maroon.

In addition to going back to the start of sports at the Helderberg Hilltown high school, the committee also wanted to balance male and female athletes and coaches as well as honor a team, said Barber.

The committee has worked for two years, collecting stories and pictures and contacting families and friends to make the Oct. 9 celebration meaningful.

“We’ve had a plaque made up for each one,” said Barber. “They’ll be set up on easels, just like in a big Hall of Fame. They’ll be covered up and we’ll reveal each one and someone will give a speech.”

Families and friends of those being honored have been invited to the celebration, which will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the BKW High School cafeteria.

“Anyone can come, from the past and the present,” said Barber. He hopes current students and their families will joint alumni and alumnae at the celebration.

These are the inductees:

Pete Shaul

Ray “Pete” Shaul, known to generations of people on the Hill simply as “Coach,” died on July 17, 1990.

Shaul started in Berne in 1947, said Barber, and he coached football, baseball, and basketball. He was best known for his 30-year tenure as BKW’s basketball coach.

Shaul lost his first 32 basketball games at BKW but, by the time he retired in 1977, he had amassed a 300-180 record.  No one has beaten it, but Galvin’s girls’ team is now closing in on Shaul’s record of winning 300 games.

In 1956, Shaul’s basketball team won BKW’s first sectional title.

“He was a person you looked up to,” said Barber. “He was stern.”

Shaul’s interest in his student didn’t end when school was let out. During the summer, he taught swimming lessons at Warners Lake, said Barber. “And he’d have an open gym in the summertime,” Barber said.

His wife, Virginia, cheered on the athletes at games and also cleaned and sewed their uniforms.

“We wanted to get the foundation,” said Barber of the committee selecting Shaul.

Julie Foley

Julie Foley had a passion for teaching and was a pioneer for girls’ sports. She died on Sunday, May 11, 2014, after a long and courageous battle with mesothelioma. She was 77.

She graduated from Voorheesville’s high school, and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College, and a master’s degree from Siena College.

“She had always wanted to be a physical-education teacher, from the time she was in high school,” said her daughter, Kristin Foley, at the time of her death. “She loved sports growing up and was a tomboy, playing sports with all the boys.”

Mrs. Foley began working as a physical-education teacher at Berne-Knox-Westerlo in 1960.

While working at BKW, she met her husband, Joseph P. Foley, who taught history there. Although she raised three children, Mrs. Foley didn’t enjoy doing the traditional “mom” things, like cooking, her daughter said; instead, she loved to gather the neighborhood kids together and organize relay races, kickball games, and swimming excursions.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Foley retired from teaching in 1995. “My parents never understood people who taught as a job,” said their daughter. “For them, teaching was a passion; they were in it for the students.”

Mrs. Foley loved interacting with the students, even outside of her job. In addition to coaching and going to sports games, she attended school plays, art shows, and musical concerts to support the students.

“It wasn’t about getting them to be athletic,” said her daughter. “Even if they hated sports, she wanted them to love her class and have fun.”

While at BKW, Mrs. Foley coached various sports, and was one of the first female athletic directors, and a class advisor. She also coached during the Empire State Games and represented Section 2 on various New York State Public High School Athletic Association committees.

“She was sort of a pioneer for girls’ sports in the state,” said her daughter. “Equanimity in sports was huge for her and she made great strides in that department.”

Mrs. Foley, her daughter said, was pleased to be able to oversee the evolution of females in sports, from what they used to call “Saturday play dates” in the 1960s, to nearly equal opportunities.

Ernie Ecker

Ernest J. Ecker, who was both strict and caring, taught and coached generations of Hilltown kids. He died on Jan. 17, 2010 at the age of 87.

“He was gruff but sincere, warm, and supportive,” said Helen Lounsbury, a retired Berne Elementary School teacher, at the time of his death. “I knew him as a teacher, as an administrator, as a school-board member, and I knew him as a friend,” she said.

“He was legendary for what he called ‘the board of education’; it was a paddle with a handle. He kept it on his desk…He was a man’s man,” said Lounsbury.

He was born in Knox into a farming family and graduated from Berne-Knox High School. He immediately joined the Army, serving in a tank battalion with the 7^th Army during World War II, on the front lines in Europe for three years. After the war, he went to the State Teachers’ College at Brockport, majoring in physical education.

His first job was teaching fifth grade at his alma mater.  In a teaching career that would span nearly three decades, entirely at Berne-Knox-Westerlo, he went on to teach all of the common branch subjects in elementary, junior high, and high school. Ecker served wherever he was needed, teaching social studies, reading, English, math, consumer economics, and high-school equivalency, and also filling in as both an elementary and high school principal when he was needed.

Ecker coached several sports, including track, cross-country, and basketball. But his primary love was soccer, which he coached for 20 years, leading his team to several league championships and one sectional championship.

“He was stern; he was a disciplinarian,” said Barber who was coached by Ecker for one year. “You had to do it his way,” said Barber. “We listened to him.”

Ecker knew all his students, said his wife, Elena Ecker, in 2010. “He could tell them who their mother and father was; he had gone to school with them,” she said.  Ecker and his wife raised four children of their own — two boys and two girls.

Ecker himself once told The Enterprise, “Anytime I had a new class, I’d tell them, ‘I’m your father, your mother, and God.’”

“Ernie always kept his word,” Lounsbury said. “He was fair. He was not one for idle comment. If he said it, he meant it…He had integrity.”

Ted Pitcher

Ted Pitcher, a BKW alumnus, held the boys’ basketball scoring record until his grandson, Garrett Pitcher, surpassed it in 2013.

The Pitchers are the only two BKW players who have reached the 1,000-point mark.

“I wasn’t trying to be the center of attention,” Garrett Pitcher said after he made his record-breaking shot. “The focus for tonight was winning, playing good defense, and playing on a team. If the record came, then good.”

Scott Pitcher, Garrett’s father, had asked Ted Pitcher what Garret could do differently. “I like him as a kid; he’s the man,” said Ted Pitcher. He’s easy to get along with...He’s a sweetheart.”

Lori and Lisa Herzog

Lisa and Lori Herzog, twins, were “great in sports,” said Barber, in an era when few girls played.

The sisters, members of the Girls’ Athletic Association, won four consecutive Schoharie County League titles with the soccer team and one with the basketball team. And they played softball, too.

“We were very shy so we just played how we played, “ Lori Herzog told The Enterprise earlier.

Both of the Herzogs now work as physical therapists and both go on vacation together.

“Back then, we stood out more,” Lori Herzog said. “I think being identical twins really helped, and everyone knows you in a small community.”

“We won a lot of games but we don’t like being in the limelight,” said Lisa Herzog.

The Herzogs liked playing sports with boys. “The guys respected us and treated us more like them,” said Lori Herzog.

The twins were allowed to join the boys’ gym class so they could be better challenged.

In 1974, the sisters played baseball with the East Berne Lakers after a year of being put off by the league because of their gender. Their father didn’t even want them to play because he thought they took opportunities away from boys.

“Coach said we earned our way,” Lori Herzog said. “We didn’t try to show anyone up. Just let our plays do the talking.”

“Sometimes,” Lisa Herzog concluded, I don’t realize how much we actually did. We showed other girls how to play.”

1956 boys’ basketball team

BKW’s 1956 boys’ basketball team was the Section 2 Class D champion. The team, coached by Shaul, set a bar that decades of other teams tried to reach and sometimes came close.

“My senior year, we were 26 and 0,” recalled Barber of the 1973 boys’ varsity team. “We lost the last game, the championship game.”

He recalled how important the sport was to the community then. “All the bleachers were full and people were three deep under each basket,” said Barber.

Hall of Fame

After the plaques, which measure 8 by 10 inches, are unveiled at the Oct. 9 induction ceremony, they will be displayed in a showcase next to the entrance of the high school gym, said Barber.

He hopes that current students will take notice.

“A lot of people don’t know these people,” said Barber. “We want to bring to light who these people really were in your school.”

He went on, “People admired them and came to all their games.”

The committee is already looking ahead to its next class of inductees.  Anyone may make a nomination by going to the Hall of Fame website: BerneKnoxWesterloSportsHallofFame.com.

Recognizing standouts in sports especially matters in a place like the Hilltowns, Barber said. “It’s important for small towns. It’s a learning experience,” he said.

Barber went on, “When I was growing up, there was nothing to do — no malls, nothing to hang out in the street. Sports gave you something to do. Coaches would help out with the kids in the summer. Some of the old farms had barns that were indoor basketball courts,” he said. The barns even had names like Madison Square Gardens, he said.

“History is important,” concluded Barber. “The generations now don’t think about who started things.”