Gophers’ ‘M Club’ Hall of Fame will induct eight, including Joel Maturi, Don Lucia

Former Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi and two-time national championship-winning men’s hockey coach Don Lucia are among the inductees to the program’s “M Club” Hall of Fame class for 2024, the university announced Monday.

Others to be inducted on Sept. 6 in a ceremony at Williams Arena include Nicole Chimko-Fahy (track and field), Eric Decker (football and baseball), Tori Dixon (volleyball), Laurie Kaiser Sund (gymnastics), Amanda Kessel (hockey) and Harsh Mankad (tennis).

The inductees will be recognized throughout that weekend, including at the Gophers home football game on Sept. 7 vs. Rhode Island.

The Gophers said Rachel Banham (basketball) and Sarah Wilhite Parsons (volleyball) were also voted in but won’t be able to attend. So they will be inducted in the future.

Maturi became the Gophers athletic department’s first AD for both men’s and women’s programs in July 2002, serving in that role until 2012. Under Maturi’s leadership, the Gophers won five national championships, including back-to-back men’s hockey titles with Lucia as coach in 2002 and ‘03.

The Gophers volleyball team, in its second season under coach Keegan Cook, is ranked No. 18 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association preseason poll.

The Gophers have been ranked in the preseason poll 23 of the past 25 seasons, including nine in a row. Last season, they were ranked seventh in the preseason but went 17-13, lost in the round of 32 of the NCAA tournament and finished unranked for the first time since 2014.

Seven Big Ten teams are ranked in the poll, including five of the top 10: No. 2 Nebraska, No. 3 Wisconsin, No. 7 Penn State, No. 8 Purdue and No. 10 Oregon.

The Gophers open their season in Milwaukee against two top-five opponents, facing No. 5 Stanford on Sept. 1 and No. 1 and two-time defending national champion Texas on Sept. 2.