Gold Medalist Baumgartner, plus coaches and athletes to be enshrined
QUINNESEC, MI – By Dennis Grall
Some years winter seems to last forever in the Upper Peninsula, so it should not be surprising that winter sports (indoor and outside) dominate the newest inductees into the U.P. Sports Hall of Fame.
Olympic snowboard champion Nick Baumgartner headlines the 2025 class of inductees. He is the fourth Winter Olympic participant to join the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame, adding his name to gold medal hockey legends Rod Paavola of Hancock and Weldy Olson of Marquette, who both helped the United States to win the gold medal in 1960.
Ten people who will be inducted into the class of 2025 on May 10 at Island Resort & Casino in Harris.
Joining them will be ski pioneer Jeannie Thoren of Marquette, softball pitcher Lesley (Noel) Delvaux of Escanaba, basketball coach/player Jamie Angeli of Iron River, basketball player Rachel (Folcik) McClure of Carney-Nadeau, veteran basketball official Dave St. Onge of Ishpeming, former Ishpeming football coach Jeff Olson of Marquette, the late John Prokos of Escanaba, Denise Porath of Escanaba and Barb Sickler of Calumet.
Sickler’s former husband, the late Wayne Sickler of Calumet, was inducted to the UPSHF in 2015.
The 2025 inductees:
Baumgartner was an All-U.P. selection in football, won a U.P. wrestling title and a U.P. hurdles championship, all in the same school year, at West Iron County High School.
He was the oldest gold medalist in China, earning the gold with Lindsey Jacobellis in the inaugural snowboard cross. He also won world snowboard cross championships in 2009, 2015 and 2017. He was also off-road racing rookie of the year in 2011.
Baumgartner also played football at Northern Michigan University.
Angeli has been a basketball coach around the world, and was a two-time All-U.P. first-team basketball player at West Iron County High School. He coached basketball at Kingsford and Norway high schools, and at D-1, D-II and D-III college levels, coached in five NCAA tournaments and became Associate director of athletics at D-III City College of New York in 2014. He has also coached in Kuwait and Qatar and was 112-25 and won three consecutive league titles and the first Asian Cup championship in Al Rayyan club history.
He has also authored more than 20 best-selling basketball books and DVD’s, has been coach of the year four times and has an overall head coaching record of 221-136.
Folcik helped tiny Carney-Nadeau High School win a Class D state basketball title as a sophomore. She scored 1,749 points for the Wolves, then scored 1,712 points at Ferris State University, was an all-state selection at C-N and has also coached high school basketball in Oxford, Ohio and Green Bay Notre Dame and in college at D-1 and D-II schools. She was BCAM Player of the year as a C-N senior.
Barb Sickler coached in the early years or girls’ sports (1960-65), working in gymnastics and track, and was a volleyball official. She also taught and coached at Lake Linden, Gwinn and Munising. She was head coach of the Lake Linden-Hubbell U.P. track title team in 1982. She also helped establish training sessions for gymnastic judges, and started girls gymnastic and track programs at Lake Linden-Hubbell high schools.
Lesley (Noel) Delvaux was a dominating pitcher at the Little League, high school and college softball levels, and was pitching coach at Escanaba Bay College when
the softball program started in 2019. She was the first U.P. player to earn a Big 10 scholarship (Michigan State), where she had an overall 42-40 record and a 3.02 ERA. At Escanaba, she was 68-8 with a career-best 0.19 ERA as a junior. She was all-region and all-state in softball at Escanaba and helped Gladstone Little League to runner-up finishes at the age 15-16 World Series in 2001 and 2002. She led her teams to multiple youth state titles.
Olson won three state football championships at Ishpeming (D-7 in 2012, 2013 and 2015) and state runner-up finishes in 2010 and 2015). He was regional coach of the year 9 times. Olson was U.P. football all-star coach in 11 of the first 15 games and coached in the state all-star game in 2018. He had a 200-91 football record in 27 years at Ishpeming.
Dave St. Onge spent 53 years officiating high school and college basketball games, with many seasons working 25 boys games and 25 girls games plus 12-16 college games. He was selected to the Basketball Coaches Association Michigan Hall of Fame in 2010. He also officiated football games for 24 years, mentored young officials and worked numerous U.P. all-star games.
Jeannie Thoren was named “one of the 25 most influential people in the skiing business in the last 50 years in making the “skiing the sport it is today” according to Skiing Magazine. Called a “crusader, a pioneer and trailblazer” for women’s skiing, she is well-known for pointing out “women are not small men so they need equipment designed specifically for them.” In 2009 she opened a ski shop in Vail, Col. geared to women and believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S.
She also conducted ski clinics for women throughout the United States.
She taught skiing at Boyne Highlands and did a stint as a synchronized swimmer.
Prokos coached track (pole vaulting) and cross country running for 60 years, with Escanaba winning their first Class A-B championship in 1991. He also helped coach pole vaulting at North Central High School.
Porath, one of the first female athletes to take advantage of Title IX, was an outstanding athlete who turned to coaching. She began playing softball at age 13, before the days when girls were not allowed in Little League, and played fastpitch softball for 35 years – including two state championships. She also played on Escanaba’s first girls basketball team and also was a vaunted sprinter on the school’s first girls track team in 1974. She played field hockey at Northern Michigan University and had a single-season record of 31 goals and tried out for the women’s U.S. women’s in 1979 – the U.S. boycotted the Olympics in 1980. Porath also coached basketball and golf at Powers North Central and won five Highland Golf Club women’s titles and was runner-up seven times.
