Upon seeing the newly arrived desserts, the eyes of 96-year-old inductee Art Asquith, lit up.

“I love cookies,” the Little Valley native and former physical education teacher/coach at Cassadaga Valley Central School said as he grabbed one and took a bite.

Paul Cooley, a teaching and coaching colleague at CVCS, quickly followed suit and the men — friends for a couple generations — sat side by side, happy as could be.

That simple shared experience could have served as a metaphor for the evening, because similar sentiments of satisfaction no doubt played out among the nearly 200 guests who filled the Gowanda Moose Club to celebrate the career accomplishments of Asquith and 10 other esteemed athletes, coaches, umpires and journalists who made up the Class of 2025.

From the left, Paul Cooley (Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2017) joins Art Asquith (CSHOF Class of 2010 and Cattaraugus County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025) at the Gowanda Moose Club on Saturday night. OBSERVER Photo by Scott Kindberg

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Tyler Dunne is a 2006 graduate of Ellicottville Central School where he played football and basketball and ran track.

On the gridiron, he was the Eagles’ starting quarterback, which only seems appropriate years later, because the guy sure knows how to be a leader in his field.

Admitting he dreamt of being a sports writer at a young age, Dunne is now an award-winning long-form NFL writer at GoLong.com, having carved out quite a career for himself, one that has also included stops at The Milwaukee Journal, The Buffalo News and Bleacher Report.

Regularly interviewing the biggest names in pro football, Dunne still calls his high school days among his fondest memories.

“There is no high in sports that comes close to Friday night, Section VI Class D (football) playing (Randolph),” he said.

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Gowanda native Jon Phillips Sr. coached and played baseball and softball, but his biggest contribution to sports in Western New York has been his 41-year career as an umpire.

“If you had told me when I was playing and coaching that I was going to become an umpire,” he said, “I would have given you the same odds as the Sabres winning the Stanley Cup.”

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A football player at Salamanca High in the late 1960s, Tom Prybylo continued his academic and athletic career at Wake Forest University.

While he filled most of his speech with self-deprecating humor, Prybylo told a moving story about his youngest daughter, a neo natal nurse, and her tireless efforts to save a newborn baby in the aftermath of the devastating hurricane in North Carolina last year.

“It’s a perfect example of paying it forward,” Prybylo said.

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For 27 years, Kevin Hind has been the boys basketball coach at Randolph Central, piling up more than 400 wins, multiple league and sectional titles and a state championship along the way.

Truth be told, his program has been one of Western New York’s finest since he took over the varsity in his early 20s.

“When I got the job, I jumped on the dining room table and was dancing around,” Hind recalled, “and the journey began.”

But beyond his victories on the court, one of my fondest memories will be what I witnessed after Hind finished his acceptance speech Saturday night. As he stepped away from the podium, more than 30 of his supporters, who also included his wife, Laurie, and their sons, Tyler and Drew, gave him a standing ovation.

Talk about a Hall-of-Fame memory.

“This is a program induction,” Hind said. “Guys that I have with me today are the heart and soul of the program.”

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Banquet chairman Mark Benton admitted that the banquet has “come a long way” since its inception two decades ago.

The numbers don’t lie.

With the induction of Asquith, Dunne, Phillips, Hind, Blake Eaton (Allegany-Limestone), Pat Clarke (Bishop Walsh), Sam Barber (Franklinville), Terry Brennan (Olean), Gary Benzel Sr. (Pioneer) and Inga Welty (Portville), the number of enshrinees stands at 238.

Next year’s banquet is set for March 28. Until then, Asquith’s closing remarks in his acceptance speech — courtesy of a quote from former St. Bonaventure University basketball coach Harry Singleton (1946-47) can serve as a friendly reminder.

It reads as follows:

“May your life be filled with God’s sunshine, with just enough of the shadow of the cross to temper the glow.”