On Tuesday, March 1, the NECC Athletics Hall of Fame class of 2022 was inducted, along with the 2020 class, whose induction was delayed because of the pandemic.

Baseball player Ryan McAuliffe, who graduated Northern Essex in 2015 and golfer Sean Chipman who graduated in 2000 were part of the class of 2022.

The class of 2000 featured the 2000-01 national semi finalist women’s basketball team and former basketball coach the late Mike Rowinski.

NECC Athletic Director Dan Blair welcomed people and thanked them for coming to the event.

Glenda Cancel, who was part of the 2000-01 national semi-finalist basketball team said she couldn’t believe she will be in the hall of fame.

“My reaction was no way I couldn’t imagine in my life to have been a hall of famer for Northern Essex and I’m truly truly happy and be part of the Women NECCO basketball team and I couldn’t be happier to play with such phenomenal woman,” Cancel said.

I asked her teammate Jessica Hamilton if she was waiting for this phone call for a while or she never envisioned this honor. “No I never even thought it was an opportunity to be given to us,”she said. “It was really exciting, you know I’m honored to be here, I live in Maryland so this is my first time back at Northern Essex in 20 years,” Hamilton said.

McAuliffe is a former baseball player for the N.Y. Mets organization “When you grow up playing baseball it is one thing after another you want to go play high school you want to play college, ypu want to go play professional baseball. I’ve had a great time doing bunch of different things but you know this type of reconization definitely goes a long way so this something years ago I never thought off,” McAuliffe said.

Chipman said it took him a day to process that he is actually a Hall of Famer “It took me a day, a couple of the golf members at the club found out about it and they brought it up to. It was very nice to recognized playing professionally as opposed to you know your day to day responsibilities as head professional, he said.