Hall of Fame calls Hughes’ name, others to follow

Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Michael Reid Tori Hughes became World Gym’s first Hall of Fame nominee. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

While it may take Hughes, who is a pitcher and shortstop for the Blues’ 10-U travel select softball team, a few more years to make a pro Hall of Fame, her picture is already hanging in a place of honor after becoming World Gym’s first Hall of Fame nominee.

‘‘I was pretty happy and excited,” said Hughes, 10, a rising fifth grader at Mutual Elementary School. ‘‘It feels pretty good.”

‘‘I was proud and a little apprehensive,” said Hughes’ mother, Julie, a bookkeeper at the Prince Frederick-based gym. ‘‘But overall, I’m very proud of her.”

Hughes is the first athlete to have her picture raised in the gym but certainly not the last. Within the next few weeks, several athletes will have their pictures put up on the wall as well. Some of the other nominees include Calvert track stars Aunye Boone and Nicole Smalls, Northern lacrosse’s Betsy Keithley and Robbie Bailey. Former high school standouts such as Calvert gridders Donovan and Taros Harris, Calvert hurdler Steve Knight, Huntingtown wrestler and footballer Phil Riley and Calvert soccer and girls lacrosse star Cate Adams are just some of the athletes who are expected to keep Hughes company in the near future.

‘‘It’s going to be really exciting because young people will see it and say, ‘Who is that?’” said Boone, a rising junior who was a three-time state champion in track and field earlier this year. ‘‘People will wonder what I did [to get up there]. Yeah, it’ll be a claim to fame.”

But former high school standouts aren’t the only ones who will find a place on the wall of the gym. Connor Peterson, an incoming freshman at Huntingtown High, will soon be enshrined as well.

The 14-year-old Peterson has been a soccer goalie since years back and a lacrosse defenseman the last three, will soon find his picture adorning the walls.

‘‘He’s really psyched,” said Peterson’s mother, Beth, the operations manager at the gym.

World Gym owner John Parker said the criteria of making the wall is based on good, old-fashioned hard work.

‘‘We’re trying to build better athletes so in terms of putting some of the pictures up of the athletes we work with, it allows us to respect the athletes as far as where they are and where they’re trying to go,” said Parker, who is also a certified personal trainer. ‘‘We like to show our appreciation for them for giving us the opportunity to work with them. We also use [the photos] to motivate them so they continue on the [athletic] path they’re already on as well as continue working out and continue working hard. It also shows that we believe in them as well.”

Hughes brought in four photos of her for the wall and eventually singled her choice down to one. The photo, which is displayed prominently above a bicycle-like exerciser, shows Hughes winding up and preparing to fire a pitch to home plate. She also signed the photo, scribbling ‘‘Thanks for all your support, Tori Hughes, Bayside Blues 10-U.”

‘‘Only a couple of my friends ask about it,” Hughes said Monday morning outside the gym. ‘‘They just say, ‘Is your picture still hanging?’ or ‘Did [John and head trainer Greg Harris] like your picture?’”

‘‘She picked that [photo],” Julie Hughes said, ‘‘because it shows her [pitching] form well.”

Parker said that by working with various types of athletes around the county, he wanted a way to motivate them to continue working hard.

‘‘They’re good athletes trying to be better athletes,” he said. ‘‘We work with a lot of athletes, both high school kids as well as younger kids, on their speed and conditioning. I kept thinking about a way to motivate parents to bring their kids in because there are a lot of kids that are obese and that’s a big problem in Calvert County. We wanted to show that we work with young people and that you never know what their potential is until you try. So we felt there was no better way to motivate some of the parents and the kids than by putting pictures of some of the other kids on the wall that we’ve had a level of success working with.”

And Parker said the selection process for who makes the wall is not based on having a résumé full of athletic accomplishments.

‘‘You don’t have to be a state champ, you don’t have to be an All-American, you don’t have to win a championship,” Parker said as he sat at one of the tables outside the gym. ‘‘It comes down to the heart and the commitment in what you’re trying to do. We normally put kids up that we’ve worked with because those are the ones we know have worked hard.”

Though Boone was pleased to learn that her picture will be going up at the gym, she said that the honor unfortunately doesn’t come with any more perks.

‘‘A year free at the gym? It would be nice but I don’t think so,” Boone said. ‘‘One hundred dollars? Probably not.”

But Julie Hughes said that her daughter has received more than just her photo on the wall.

‘‘Greg’s helped her a real lot with her skills,” said Hughes of her daughter, who works out twice a week with Harris. ‘‘Her agility has increased but especially her speed. Was she slow-footed? Very. But she has average speed now.”

And Tori Hughes said there’s been another perk as well. When asked if she feels like a movie star with her picture hanging at the gym, Hughes smiled wide and nodded.

‘‘Uh, yeah,” she said.

E-mail Michael Reid at mreid@somdnews.com.