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Sacks king Aaron Hunt among 8 inductees into Texas Tech athletic Hall of Fame
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- Sacks king Aaron Hunt among 8 inductees into Texas Tech athletic Hall of Fame
Adell Duckett , the former Texas Tech football defensive end, remembers the day Aaron Hunt set the school record for career sacks. As his giddy teammates celebrated, surrounding and jumping on him, Hunt told them to back off.
"I remember him pushing everyone away, saying, 'Y'all have to let me dance,' " Duckett said, cracking up a banquet crowd on Friday, Nov. 7.
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Hunt played for Tech from 1998 through 2002. With 34 sacks, he still holds the Tech record and shares the Big 12 record. On Friday, he was part of an eight-member class inducted into the Tech athletics Hall of Fame.
Hunt went on to a decorated career in the Canadian Football League and now is the Baylor football general manager, but he looks back on his college years fondly.
"It was the best time of my life pretty much," he said before a banquet crowd at the Lubbock YWCA event room.
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Football player Aaron Hunt is part of the 2025 class of the Texas Tech athletics Hall of Fame.
Hunt was one of three football players inducted, the others quarterback B.J. Symons (1999-2003) and safety Ryan Aycock (1999-2003). All three signed with Spike Dykes and played most of their careers under Mike Leach. Aycock, more than his 338 tackles, is known for making interceptions that were vital in Tech victories over Texas A&M in 2001, Texas in 2002 and Ole Miss in 2003.
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Symons bided his time behind Kliff Kingsbury and then, as a fifth-year senior in 2003, passed for a then-FBS record 5,833 yards and 52 touchdowns.
"I always looked up to you for the moxie, the swagger, the gunslinger mentality," Kingsbury said in a video tribute. "When you walked out on the field, the entire team felt your confidence, and the numbers, the stats, all the things you put up were unbelievable.
"I'm really, really honored to have been your teammate and a friend. The way you treated me in your role when you knew you could have been out there starting easily ... has always meant the world to me."
Two track and field athletes were inducted: JaCorian Duffield (2011-15), a two-time NCAA champion and school record holder in the high jump; and Cierra White (2012-15), a three-time Big 12 champion sprinter and 11-time all-America honoree.
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Also inducted were Janine Beckie Sonis (2012-15), widely considered Tech's greatest soccer player; Gabriella Dominguez (2009-13), a third-team all-American and top-10 finisher at the 2012 women's golf NCAA championships; and Matt Kastelic (1995-96), who holds the Tech baseball career record for stolen bases (97) and single-season record for hits (114), set during his first-team all-America season of 1996.
Texas Tech athletics Hall of Fame 2025 class includes, left to right, Ryan Aycock, Aaron Hunt, Gabriella Dominguez, Jacorian Duffield, Cierra White, B.J. Symons and Matt Kastelic. Not pictured, Janine Beckie and Heritage Award winner Gerald Myers.
Beckie Sonis, still a professional soccer player and in season with Racing Louisville FC, could not attend the ceremony.
The group will receive on-field recognition during Saturday's Texas Tech-Brigham Young football game at Jones AT&T Stadium.
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Former Tech basketball player, coach and athletics director Gerald Myers was the recipient of the Heritage Award, which will be named in his honor. The Heritage Award, initiated in 2005, honors former letterwinners who have been exemplary in their chosen field, while displaying qualities of sportsmanship, character and integrity.
Kastelic was a sparkplug on Tech baseball teams that went 51-14 in 1995 and 49-15 in 1996.
One of Kastelic's teammates was pitcher Matt Miller, who made it to Major League Baseball for two seasons.
"I've played with a lot of guys in my career," Miller said in a video tribute, "whether it's high school, college or pro ball, and I've never played with a more confident athlete than Kastelic."
Former Texas Tech track and field all-Americans JaCorian Duffield, left, and Cierra White, right, were part of an eight-member class inducted into the Texas Tech athletics Hall of Fame on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025.
Duffield and Bradley Adkins dueled each other at high-school state meets from Universal City Randolph and Idalou, respectively. As teammates at Tech, they became the first from the same school to finish 1-2 in the same year at the NCAA indoor and outdoor championships.
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"Anytime I had a bad day in practice," Duffield said, "it was worse, because you had a future Olympian (Adkins) next to you, so we pushed each other. We competed every day."
Duffield holds the school record of 7 feet, 8 inches. His contemporaries, Trey Culver and Adkins, had personal bests of 7-7 3/4 and 7-6, respectively. They were coached by James Thomas, now head coach at Oklahoma.
"He kind of brought the science to high jump," Duffield said. "I just thought you show up, you work hard, you'll be successful. Coach Thomas kind of brought the science aspect of it while feeding my competitive nature."
Dominguez was teammates with Kim Kaufman, a 2023 Tech Hall of Fame inductee.
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"We were always neck and neck in a lot of tournaments that we were in," Dominguez said. "That really pushed us to be better players."
Dominguez now works as a senior intelligence analyst at the U.S. Space Force Combat Forces Command.
"What my job is," she said, "is providing intelligence and intelligence environment to senior leaders so they can make the best decisions that they can make for our Space Forces, and for just national security in general."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Sacks king Aaron Hunt among 8 inducted into Texas Tech Hall of Fame
