The Colorado Sports Hall of Fame announced its 2026 class on Wednesday, adding six athletes who made their mark on the state across five different sports.
Headlining the ’26 class is Broncos career interceptions leader Steve Foley, Nuggets legend Lafayette “Fat” Lever and former CU Buffs star quarterback Kordell Stewart.
Also getting inducted at the organization’s 61st annual banquet on April 16 in Denver is International Tennis Hall of Famer Beatriz “Gigi” Fernandez, track athlete and Olympian Wendy Koenig and hooper Harry Hollines, DU’s all-time leading scorer.
Foley played all 11 of his NFL seasons in Denver from 1976-86, where he was a central figure in the secondary of the Orange Crush defense. He helped the Broncos to four AFC West titles and played in two Super Bowls. The Broncos Ring of Famer finished with 44 career interceptions and 877 tackles across 150 regular-season games and 10 playoff games for Denver.
Lever played for the Nuggets from 1984-90. He led the Nuggets to the Western Conference Finals in ’84-’85, and averaged 17 points, 7.6 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 2.5 steals during his Denver tenure. The two-time all-star is the franchise’s all-time steals leader with 1,167, and the Nuggets retired his No. 12 in 2017.
Stewart was a three-year starter at QB for CU. The dual-threat signal caller led the Buffs to a 27-5-1 record in that span and two bowl victories. He went on to an 11-year NFL career, mostly with the Steelers, and CU inducted the 2001 Pro Bowler into its Athletic Hall of Fame in 2018.
Fernandez, an Aspen resident during the prime of her tennis career, won 17 Grand Slam titles and two Olympic gold medals in doubles. The Puerto Rican won the French Open six times, the U.S. Open five times, Wimbledon four times and the Australian Open twice. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame with longtime doubles partner Natasha Zvereva in 2010. After retiring in 1997, she got into tennis instruction and coaching.
Koenig, who graduated from Estes Park High School and Colorado State, competed twice in the 800-meter run in the Olympics. Her first appearance on the world’s largest stage was in 1972 as a 17-year-old, and then she returned to the Games in ’76, where she finished seventh. She won two national titles in the 880-yard run and was an All-American at CSU. The Sportswomen of Colorado Hall of Famer was most recently the mayor of Estes Park.
Hollines, a prep standout at Manual High School, lit up the record book at DU. In three seasons as a Pioneer, Hollines averaged 25.1 points per game for a total of 1,879 points. He was an All-American twice for DU, and went on to make an impact on local youth as the director of the Skyland Rec Center (now called the Hiawatha Davis Jr. Recreation Center) in Denver. DU elected him to its Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996.
Tickets for the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame banquet are $250 each. Since its inception in 1965, the organization has enshrined 292 individuals in its Hall of Fame, with the inaugural class featuring football player Earl “Dutch” Clark, boxer Jack Dempsey and CU football star-turned-Supreme Court Justice Byron “Whizzer” White.
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