Alaska Sports Hall of Fame to Announce Class of 2011

ANCHORAGE - The Alaska Sports Hall of Fame will honor the two people, one event and one moment that will make up the Class of 2011 on Tuesday, February 1, from 6-7:30PM. The public is welcome to attend the ceremony at the Anchorage Museum auditorium. The event is free. A large viewing screen and catering will be set up in the museum atrium in case the auditorium reaches capacity.

The ceremony will feature a presentation of video biographies, portrait unveilings, acknowledgements by the Class of 2011 inductees, and inductee introductions by special guests. Kikkan Randall will be introduced by her aunt and mentor, Olympian Betsy Haines. Chuck White will be introduced by five of his former players, one from each decade that he coached.

Kikkan Randall and Chuck White will be in attendance to accept their induction trophies. A prerecorded video featuring Scott Gomez will be shown in acceptance of the Hall of Fame Moment award for bringing the Stanley Cup to Anchorage in 2000. The popular Mount Marathon race will be inducted in the event category. Twenty two former Mount Marathon champions spanning seven decades of the race and owning 62 combined titles will be in attendance and recognized during the event.

Class of 2011 Inductees will be available to conduct media interviews before the ceremony from 4-5:00PM in the Anchorage Museum front lobby.

At 27, Kikkan Randall is already one of the most recognized nordic skiers on the planet by virtue of her unprecedented success for an American woman on the international level. A three-time Olympian, the Anchorage native made history in 2009 when she won a silver medal at the World Championships to become the first U.S. woman to ever medal at that event. In 2007 she captured a bronze medal in Russia, the best ever World Cup result by an American woman. And in 2006 she had the highest Olympic finish for an U.S. woman with a ninth-place finish. At East High, Randall won a combined 10 state titles in cross country and track and field.

The most legendary coaching figure in the history of Alaska, Chuck White won 921 high school boys basketball games and 18 state championships stretched over 45 seasons. In March, at age 68, White left Alaska for the college ranks at Adams State, an NCAA Division II school in Colorado, where he reunited for his former East High player and assistant Louis Wilson.

In the summer of 2000, Alaska hockey fans will never forget the day Anchorage's Scott Gomez brought home the Stanley Cup. Arguably the most recognizable trophies in all of sports, Gomez shared his prized possession with the entire state after he won it with the New Jersey Devils. Every player from the winning team is allowed one day with the Stanley Cup and Gomez decided to tour it around the city for all to see, starting with a ceremony on the Delaney Park Strip in which he arrived carrying the trophy riding a dog sled. "This is for you," he told the fans. Gomez vowed to return with the Cup again and delivered that promise in 2003.

One of the oldest known footraces in all of American, the Mount Marathon in Seward is a grueling, 3,022-foot torture test that dates back to 1915. Started by a bar bet, the race has developed into a summer signature event in The Last Frontier with the town swelling from a few thousand people to nearly 40,000 overnight. The best men finish in 45 minutes, the top women in under an hour.

The Alaska Sports Hall of Fame is a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization established in 2006. The mission of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame is to teach, to honor and to inspire. For additional information about the Hall contact Harlow Robinson at 907.240.3684 or Chris Myers at 907.301.8263.

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ALASKA SPORTS HALL OF FAME TO HONOR CLASS OF 2011