Growth of Girls Basketball Reflected in County Hall of Fame Inductees
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| The Hall of Fame, which began in 2013, will have a permanent home at the Boys and Girls Club of the Berkshires, it was announced on Saturday. |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. – Each year, the Berkshire County High School Girls Basketball Hall of Fame adds more chapters to the history of the game.
Sometimes, that history can be traced through a single family.
“I can go back to the days that show how far we've progressed in women's basketball,” Deborah Donovan told the crowd at Saturday’s induction ceremony at Proprietor’s Lodge. “Because when I started at St. Joe, we had pinnies -- do you know what pinnies are? They were things you threw over your head, and it was either red or yellow, and you had to tape on a number.
“We didn't have a league, per se. We didn't have anyone go out and follow us.”
Donovan and her sisters, Patricia Donovan and Laura Donovan-Najimy, all graduates of St. Joseph Central High School, joined the county Hall of Fame on Saturday afternoon, along with Donovan-Najimy’s daughter, Alice Najimy, a graduate of Lenox Memorial, Hoosac Valley’s Alie Mendel, Wahconah’s Maria Gamberoni, Lee’s Karli Retzel, Drury’s Bonnie Eichorn and Mount Everett’s Gwendolyn Carpenter.
Coach Ron Wojcik, who led Hoosac Valley to six state finals and two state titles, and Peter Arment, the long-time president of the Lenox Youth Basketball Association, rounded out the 11-member Class of 2026.
Patricia Donovan, in her remarks, noted that her sister Deborah played high school basketball in the days when teams played six on a side and players were not allowed to cross half court.
But Deborah, who went on to compete at Berkshire Community College and, in the 1974-75 season, at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, saw the game progress during her playing days.
“It wasn't until I went to BCC for my first two years – and we had a phenomenal group of Berkshire County players – it was so ironic that we got more press at BCC,” Deborah Donovan said. “We would fill the field house -- we played before the men. The field house would be filled for us, and then when our games were over, it would practically empty out.
“We were thankful for the recognition. People appreciated the skill of women.”
Meanwhile, back at St. Joe, Patricia Donovan and her teammates were playing in real uniforms and five per side.
“Then I look at my sisters Peggy and Laura, who played together and had a phenomenal career,” Patricia Donovan said. “When they were in high school, that was the beginning of the women's semi-pro basketball league.
“You're seeing how we have seen so many changes that have impacted where we have come to today. And, with that, the opportunities that are presented as each one of us, as an inductee or a player, are forming paths or futures for other players coming this way.”
Whether a basketball coach for her daughter and future Hall of Famer Alice or a cross country coach for Lenox High’s state title-contending girls cross country team, Laura Donovan-Najimy has been creating opportunities for student-athletes for decades. But she, too, remembers the milestones on the road to parity for girls sports in the county.
“I think it was my sixth- or seventh-grade year – this is a little trivia – the [Catholic Youth Center] hosted what would be the first organized girls basketball tournament during February vacation,” Donovan-Najimy said. “They had some of the high school girls coach. My sister, Trish, was our coach.
“She was a mean coach.”
In addition to highlighting the origins of the sport locally, Saturday’s ceremony included some of the origin stories of the players who excelled on the hardwood in recent years.
Mount Everett’s Carpenter was inducted into the Hall, joining Lenox Memorial grad and inaugural Hall of Fame inductee Samantha Herrick, whose county scoring record Carpenter eclipsed in March 2019.
Carpenter ended up with 2,121 points in high school en route to setting the all-time assist record at Framingham State University.
Her high school coach with the Eagles, Scott Rote, recalled that Carpenter’s early brush with the Mount Everett varsity came when she tagged along with her father, Mount Everett teacher Jesse Carpenter, to the school while Rote’s team practiced.
“He’d say, ‘Coach, can Gwen just hang at the gym? She won’t bother you. Just give her a ball and put her off to the side,’ “ Rote said. “This was her fifth-grade, sixth-grade year. When she was a sixth-grader, we had a light practice and didn’t have many people there. We said, ‘Gwen, how would you like to practice with us a little bit?’ That was the start of something special we knew we were going to have at Mount Everett.
“As a sixth-grader, she proceeded to go out and win every shooting contest we had, shut down some of our better players defensively and just had a grand old time.
“I knew I couldn’t wait for that seventh-grade year when we could put her on the varsity team.”
Another 2019 high school graduate, Hoosac Valley’s Mendel, joined the Hall of Fame on Saturday.
Mendel scored 1,000 points for the Hurricanes, helping Hoosac Valley to three state finals and one state championship before starting 29 games at Westfield State from 2020-22.
While Carpenter overcame an anterior-cruciate ligament injury that cost her five games as a sophomore at Mount Everett, Mendel battled a life-threatening medical condition during her Hall of Fame career.
“She certainly had one of the most courageous journeys I’ve ever seen,” said Mendel’s high school coach, Wojcik, in presenting her to the hall. “Between her junior and senior years, she beat thyroid cancer and told me all along she’d be back to play.
“From the first day of practice on, she told me, ‘We’re going to win the state championship.’ And after having lost four in row, I wasn’t really sure.
“But she kept with it.”
