BHS Athletic Hall of Fame Unveils Its Class of 2012

For , the success stories just keep rolling in.

Now in its seventh year since its founding and incorporation in 2006, the Barnstable High School Athletic Hall of Fame announced two days ago its eigth class of inductees, a list which includes 12 former student-athletes to be enshrined, in addition to this year's William Leo Shields Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, the late Michael Duffley Sr.

Duffley, a longtime local builder and one of the founding fathers of Barnstable Youth Football (aka The Barnstable Silver Bullets), was a member of the Class of 1972 and was co-captain of the 1971 BHS football team, along with Bob Kahelin. He was also the starting shortstop on the varsity baseball team and helped lead the Red Raiders to a brilliant, 16-4-1 record in the spring of 1972 and then head coach Rollie Hicks' second Capeway Conference championship.

It was Duffley's remarkable tenacity and passion for the gridiron game, though, that saw him help create the youth football program in town, along with such close friends as Brian Dacey, and it was that program which helped build BHS into the Division 1 high school football powerhouse it was in 1995 and 1999.

Duffley's son, Michael Duffley Jr. of Plymouth, graduated with the class of 1996 and was co-captain of the Red Raiders in the vaunted, undefeated campaign of 1995, a season that saw the Red & White go 11-0 and finished with an 11-0 victory over New Bedford in the Division 1A Super Bowl and the top ranking in Eastern Massachusetts.

Mike Duffley Jr. went on to play football on scholarship at the University of Rhode Island, as did his fellow co-captain of the 1995 team, Jon Sproul. Sproul, also being inducted to the hall of fame in November, went on to become captain at Columbia University. In addition to their phenomenal gridiron exploits - Duffley ran for 1,019 yards and 17 touchdowns and Sproul set the still unbroken all-time single season record for sacks (18) at BHS - this dynamic duo were equally versatile in other varsity sports as well as being ranked near the top of the Class of 1996, academically.

Duffley was the starting catcher for the Barnstable High varsity baseball team while Sproul twice lettered in varsity basketball and was a tri-captain in the 1995-96 campaign under Kevin Turner.

Other inductees this year include the Class of 1999's Mike Broughton; Class of 1993's Jon Way; Coach William F. Naylor; Class of 1992's Kristen Pierce-Laube (Gymnastics); Class of 1999's Lee Dion; Class of 2003's Ryan Sifflard; Class of 1987's Tim Lus; Class of 2003's Liz Curley; Class of 1985's Mike Gill and Class of 1991's Ryan O’Neil.

Broughton, one of Barnstable's all-time greatest football running backs, rushed for 1,150 yards and 10 touchdowns in 1997 as a junior and then went on in the fall of 1998 to captain the BHS squad to an 8-2 mark. All totalled, with Broughton at running back, Barnstable went 16-5 over the course of two seasons. He was a Shriner's South All-Star his senior year.

After a 28-year hitaus, Barnstable High School tennis returned under the direction of coach Eldon Lawson in 1963, but it was in 1966 that then first-year head coach (the late) William "Bill" Naylor took the program under his wing and for all intents and purposes, it soared. Upon his retirement in 1979, Naylor's tennis teams had captured threee consecutive SMC Division 1 championships and thus began what has become nearly routine domination each spring since.

Few track stars in Barnstable High history have shined as brilliantly as the famous "Way" brothers, Jonathan "Jon" Way and his younger brother Jeff Way in the early to mid-1990s, but it was Jon Way who blazed a trail in long distance events such as the one- and two-mile events that opened eyes with every step along the way. Starting in his freshman year, Way immediately jumped into the forefront of Red Raider long distance events when he became the top dog for Coach Don Smith's varsity cross-country team and when the dust settled and the Boston Herald and Boston Globe All-Scholastic finally hung up his track spikes, he finished by setting a school record at 15:39. It is a record that has yet to be broken (1992).

If any single individual student-athlete in the long annals of BHS lore can be singled out for remarkability, the Class of 1999's Lee Dion was one such person. Leading the Red Raiders to their fouth state championship title under fellow hall of famer coach Bob Kingman, Dion was crowned in 1998 the Massachusetts Division 1 Individual State Champion. 

If selflessness and a team-unifying spirit could be bottled and sold, then Ryan Sifflard would already be a multimillionaire for few Red Raider three-sport stars could match his level of perserverance and devotion to the Red & White, nor the success that followed with it. A collegiate football star at the Coast Guard Academy in New Haven, CT and a US Veteran of the Coast Guard, Sifflard's post-high school accolades nearly pale to those he earned while donning the Red & White. 

In football, Sifflard captained the Red Raiders to a 9-3 record against such opponents as St. John's Prep and Brockton and Marshfield, to name a few. In basketball, the 2001-2002 campaign will go down in history as one of the top five best finishes and seasons the Red & White parquet five has ever offered.

As a junior power forward, Sifflard helped lead the Red Raiders to a 20-3 record and one of just three seasons since 1925 that Barnstable's boys varsity basketball program has won 20 or more games. On the baseball diamond, the first baseman helped lead Barnstable to a 14-8 record.

1985's Mike Gill was no less prolific on both the football field and basketball court but it was on the basketball court that Gill's exploits can truly never be forgotten. Playing for fellow hall of famer head coach Gerry McDowell, Gill rarely came off the floor for three seasons, pouring in 20-plus point games time and time again and in his senior campaign in 1984-85, leading Barnstable to the SMC Division 1 Championship. He is the last player in Barnstable to be named a basketball conference co-player of the year and he was named the Cape Cod High School Player of the Year by the Cape Cod News.

LIz Curley of the Class of 2003 was a four-time letterman for Tom Turco's volleyball-championship machine, led Turco's girls to an unheard of 28-0 mark her sophomore year in 2000 as well as a Division 1 state championship and finished her career with a full collegiate athletic scholarship and being named the 2003 Gatorade Massachusetts Player of the Year.

1991's Ryan O'Neil, who went on to play hockey at UConn, but while wearing the Red & White of the Red Raiders, he captained Barnstable to its last Division 1 State Championship title with a 22-1-1 record. he will long be remembered for his goal against Don Bosco at Boston University in the Division 1 Quarterfinals.