Football
Bruce Bosley
The Middlebury teaching legend was honored alongside 12 different inductees.
Vermont Governor Phil Scott, Mickey Heinecken, VSHOF Board Member T.J. Donovan. (Credit: Vermont Sports Images)
Mickey Heinecken, a record-setting coach at Middlebury College for 28 years and the founder of the Vermont Chapter of the National Football Foundation, was one of 13 latest inductees into the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame. The corridor inducted its thirteenth class on April 25, 2026 in South Burlington, Vermont.
A longtime resident of Cornwall, Vermont, Heinecken served as Middlebury’s head soccer coach from 1973 to 2000, and he posted a 126-95-2 mark with seven one-loss seasons. When he retired from teaching, he had the sixth-best profitable proportion (.567) amongst New England Division III soccer coaches. In 1993, he helped set up the Vermont Chapter of the National Football Foundation and in 2007, he acquired a National NFF Chapter Leadership Award.
Others inducted with Heinecken had been lacrosse standout Sarah Dalton Graddock of Cornwall; Susan Dunklee of Barton, a three-time Olympic biathlete and a multi-sport standout in highschool and school; Saint Michael’s College basketball star and longtime highschool coach Dick Falkenbush of South Burlington; the first-ever wrestler inducted, Steven Forrest of Bennington, a champion and nationwide crew member; observe and area star Mary Heitkamp of Orwell; Olympic moguls snowboarding medalist Hannah Kearney of Norwich, Vt.; Swanton’s Matt Raleigh, a standout participant and profitable coach in any respect ranges of baseball; and legendary collegiate ice hockey coach Mike McShane of Norwich University; Veteran award-winning sportswriter Tom Haley of Proctor is that this 12 months’s Mal Boright Media Inductee. Jake Agna of South Burlington, an inspirational tennis coach, is the 2026 David Hakins Inductee for distinctive promotion of sports activities, athletics and recreation in the state. The late Fenwick Watkins of Burlington, who had a number of racial firsts as an athlete and a coach in the early 1900s, is the 2026 Historical Inductee.
A portion of the proceeds raised by the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame will profit its designated charity, Prevent Child Abuse Vermont. Prior to this 12 months, the occasion has raised over $37,000 for PCAV since its inception in 2012.
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