VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

(Photo Courtesy UVM Athletic Comm)

Barre/St. Johnsbury

Basketball

Inducted 2019

A standout player at Spaulding High in Barre and at the University of Vermont, Layne Higgs went on to become a successful coach at St. Johnsbury Academy for over three decades.

Higgs was a key part at the start of one of Vermont’s high school boy’s hoop dynasties playing for the first two of Spaulding’s four consecutive Class L basketball titles (1961 to 1964). He helped the Crimson Tide start a 52-game winning streak at the Barre Auditorium. The 1961-62 Spaulding team was named by the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001 as one of the best in Vermont history. 

Higgs was a three-year men’s basketball standout for the Catamounts (freshmen were not eligible for the varsity) and was named to the All-Yankee Conference second team in 1966 after honorable mention honors in 1964. He finished with a 14.9 points per game career scoring average from 1963 to 1966, then UVM’s fifth highest. 

A member of UVM’s baseball and track and field teams, he received the Wasson Athletic Prize, for academics and athletics, and was also named to the Yankee Conference’s All-Academic teams.

After graduation Higgs was the basketball coach for Kingswood Regional High in Wolfborough, N.H. for four years before moving to St. Johnsbury Academy as a teacher and coach. From 1971 to his retirement in 2006, his Hilltoppers won more than 450 games, ranking him then third among Vermont high school boy’s basketball coaches. He led St. Johnsbury to three Vermont Division 1 championships (1981, 1982, 1997) including 11 final four appearances and six trips to the title game.

Among his standout players at St. Johnsbury were future NCAA D-I stars Tony Orciari and Taylor Coppenrath (UVM), Henry ‘Bruce’ Dalrymple (Georgia Tech) and Rory Grimes (Iona).

Higgs was inducted into the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame in 1982. In 2006 he was named to the New England Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach and received the Coaching Achievement Award from the Vermont Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association. He also is a member of the Vermont Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.