Hall of Fame

The Greater Utica Sports Hall of Fame (GUSHOF) honored the Class of 2024 during its 35th annual induction ceremony on October 6, 2024 at Club Monarch in Yorkville.

Five-time Olympic track and field medalist Irving Baxter, outstanding basketball players Michele Davis and Leroy Witherspoon, NCAA champion swimmers Emily Lesher and Alison Lesher Migonis, her twin sister, and NBA broadcaster Tim Roye make up the GUSHOF Class of 2024.

Baxter, a graduate of Utica Free Academy, Trinity College, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School and later a Utica judge and attorney, won two gold medals and three silver medals in the 1900 Olympics in Paris.

Davis, Utica University’s women’s basketball coach since 2000, enjoyed a standout playing career at Notre Dame High School. She went on to Herkimer County Community College, where she was a two-time National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region III Player of the Year. At SUNY Albany, she established several records and remains among the school’s all-time leaders in several categories.

Witherspoon also starred at Notre Dame, and then earned a multitude of honors at small college power Potsdam State. He was a two-time All American, a two-time pision III player of the year, a SUNYAC Player of the Year, a three-time first team SUNYAC all-star, and a key member of the Bears’ 1981 national championship team.

The Lesher twins, graduates of Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School, both won NCAA swimming titles while establishing records at their respective schools. Alison was a pision II national champion in the 200-yard butterfly for LeMoyne College, where she was a five-time All-American and 10-time conference champion. Emily, a nine-time All-American, was a junior at Nazareth College when she won a pision III national championship in the 400 inpidual medley, breaking a 10-year-old NCAA record.

Roye has been the radio voice of the Golden State Warriors since 1995, covering the team through their glory years when they won four championships in seven seasons – 2015, 2017, 2018, 2022. He is a Utica University graduate, who began his career at WIBX, where he did play-by-play for the Utica Blue Sox, Utica Comets and Stars, before going on to major assignments in the South and West. He is a member of the Utica University Hall of Fame.