Former Nashua High football coach Bill Hardy, right, with one of his biggest coaching rivals, Pinkerton's Brian O'Reilly. Hardy will be inducted into the Nashua Athletics Hall of Fame in May. (Telegraph file photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Two championship coaches and a longtime former athletic director head the list of the Class of 2025 inductees for the Nashua Athetics Hall of Fame.

Former Nashua Athletic Director Al Harrington will be inducted, along with two coaches he hired – former Nashua football coach Bill Hardy and boys basketball coach George Noucas. The ceremony, which takes place every other year, will be held on Sunday, May 18, in 2025 at the Nashua Courtyard Marriott, beginning at noon.

Also set to be inducted are several former athletes from Nashua High School North, South, and the one Nashua Senior High School.

Former three-sport standout Aaron Gureckis, who quarterbacked the 1997 Nashua team that Hardy coached, will be inducted. He was also a basketball and baseball standout.

Others from the single Nashua High included football and track athlete Matt Sheehan, who graduated in 2004; volleyball, basketball and track athlete Jamie Franks (Class of 1999); and Sarah Neville Guadiano, a 1994 grad who had 12 varsity seasons between soccer, basketball, and track. She also competed in soccer and track at the U.S.Naval Academy.

From Nashua North will be track athlete Shalyn Johnson (Class of 2009) and former Nashua South volleyball, basketball and lacrosse standout Caitlin Ackerman (Class of 2011).Ackerman was a 1,000 point scorer in basketball.

Also being inducted as a Contributor will be Diane Keene, who was the Nashua South Athletic Department administrative assistant from 2004-2016, guiding the logistics following split into two Nashua schools.

Hardy, who was a physical education teacher in the Nashua system for 35 years, was an assistant football coach in the early 1990s before assuming the head coaching reins from 1994-2002. He guided Nashua to the 1996 state title game vs. Londonderry and his team with basically the same cast broke through in 1997 with a state championship.

Noucas coached the Panthers from 1980-1998, and guided them to multiple state finals and championships, the two most memorable being in two all-local finals – the 66-65 win over a previously undefeated Bishop Guertin team in 1986 and the 58-48 win over Merrimack in 1991.

Harrington was the athletic director during that period, which included the nationally renown Nashua girls basketball dynasty. His policies set the tone forNashua athletics for more than two decades. He succeeded the legendary Buzz Harvey, and became the model of consistency until he retired in 2001. He was inducted a couple of years ago into the Nashua Lions Club’s Legends of Holman Stadium Hall of Fame.

(Please note: Telegraph staff writer Tom King is also a member of the Nashua Hall of Fame Committee.)