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The Tennessee
Sports Hall of Fame recognized eleven inductees at its annual
awards banquet and induction ceremony on February 18th at
the Renaissance Hotel in Nashville.
The 2005
inductees are as follows:
Dr.
Dick Barnett - three-time All American and all-time
leading scorer for Tennessee State University (3,009 points
in 136 games), led the Tigers to three consecutive NAIA basketball
championships and was named MVP two consecutive years. Barnett
was the number one draft choice in the NBA with the Syracuse
Nationals. Later, he played three seasons with the LA Lakers
before being traded to the New York Knicks where he played
on the only two championship teams in Knicks history (1970
and 1973). During his 14 year NBA career, Barnett scored 15,358
points and was named to the All Star Team in 1968-69. His
number was retired and hangs in the rafters of Madison Square
Garden.
Darwin
Bond - a three time All American at Dobyns-Bennett
High School in East Tennessee, was undefeated in the 440 with
48 victories and is the current TSSAA 440/400 record holder
(a record standing since 1970). Bond was a three-time Tennessee
State Champion and was a two-time National Junior Olympic
440 Champion. Bond attended the University of Tennessee where
he was a three-time (outdoor) and two-time (indoor) NCAA All-American.
He was a member of the 1974 NCAA National Championship team
and seven SEC championship teams. His UT 400-meter record
time of 45.08 was run in 1974 and was only broken recently
after standing for 29 years.
Richmond
Flowers - after an Alabama high school track season
that ended in five first place finishes with five state records
in five events, Flowers attended the University of Tennessee
where he became the most successful two sport athlete in Tennessee
history. Flowers, an NCAA football All-American, left the
university as the schools all-time leading pass receiver (105
catches for 1,215 yards in 3 years) while leading the Vols
to three bowl games and an SEC Championship. In track and
field, Flowers was a four-time All-American, a NCAA High Hurdle
Champion and a NCAA record holder in two events. Flowers was
drafted by the Dallas Cowboys where he was a member of the
Super Bowl V Team. In 1999, Athlon Sports magazine named him
one of the 25 top collegiate receivers of the century.
Haywood
Harris - appointed by General Robert Neyland in 1961,
Harris has been a steadying force in the University of Tennessee
Athletic Department for more than 50 years. A renowned writer,
Harris came to the University as Sports Information Director
and has served as Assistant Athletic Director and Associate
Athletic Director of Media Relations. In 1982, Inside Sports
Magazine listed him as one of the top five publicists in the
nation. He was named to the College Sports Information Directors
of America's Hall of Fame in 1984 and received the organization's
top award, the Arch Ward Award, in 1991. He was inducted into
the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame and earned a Chancellor's
Citation for Extraordinary Service to the University in 1992.
After retirement in 2000, Harris has co-authored a book titled
Six Seasons Remembered, The National Championship Years of
Tennessee Football.
Bill
Justus - a High School All-American in football and
basketball at Fulton High School in Knoxville, attended the
University of Tennessee and became a basketball standout.
He was named All-SEC (in 1967, '68 and '69), an NCAA Academic
All-American in '68 and an NCAA All-American in 1969. Justus
continues to hold three NIT free throw records as well as
three single game NCAA Madison Square Garden free throw records.
He played in the East-West College All-Star Game in 1969 before
being drafted by Philadelphia (NBA), Denver (ABA) and the
Dallas Cowboys (NFL). Justus traveled extensively after college
teaching ball-handling and shooting skills for Converse at
coaches' clinics and basketball camps throughout the U.S.
Since taking up competitive tennis after age 30, he has won
numerous amateur USTA tournament championships. Justus, who
lives in Nashville, was inducted into the Knoxville Sports
Hall of Fame in 1990.
Ed
Murphey - a native of Brownsville, Tennessee in Haywood
County, Murphey earned a full track and field scholarship
at the University of Tennessee. He was named an NCAA All American
in 1956 as he set a school record in the 1,500-meter run (3:52)
and was the fourth best collegiate miler that year - a benchmark
which stood for two decades.
This outstanding runner for the Vols set several additional
records which stood the test of multiple years. His mile record
(4:16) run at Neyland Stadium in 1956 stands unbroken for
that venue. Murphey also set the SEC mile record the following
year, 1957 with a time of 4:14. He set the 1956 SEC Cross
Country record in Atlanta (21:21).
In 1956 he became the first UT runner to become a finalist
for a U.S. Olympic Track team as documented in the book, A
History of the University of Tennessee 1794-1970. Murphey
also was the U.S. Marine Corps mile champion in 1958 and was
inducted into the Brownsville Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
He has continued to support the track program at the university.
Since 1965, Murphey has presented the prestigious Ed Murphey
Award to the outstanding trackman each year at his alma mater.
Ed Murphey has lived and worked in Memphis for the last 45
years.
Betty
Booker-Parks
- a four-time High School basketball MVP, was named to
the Tennessee All Star game in 1976 with a career average
of 30.2 points per game. Booker-Parks was named 2nd Team All-American
at the University of Memphis in 1975 and still holds school
record for games played (137), points scored (2,835), scoring
average (20.7), field goals attempted (2,704), field goals
made (1,203) and steals (360). She held the record for most
points scored in a game (41 in 1978) until passed by All-American
Tamika Whitmore in 1999. Booker-Parks was a first round draft
choice in the Women's Basketball League and was named to the
University of Memphis Athletic Hall of Fame in 1985. She was
named the Commercial Appeal's "Best of the Prep"
Coach of the Year in 1991, 1992 and 1993 and was manager/coach
of the WBA Memphis Blues Basketball Team in 1994.
Susan
Russ - founder of the women's track program at the
University of Memphis in 1969, made 3 national AIAW Track
appearances as coach of the Lady Tigers. Under her coaching,
Wanda (Hooker) Simpson became Memphis' first Lady Tiger NCAA
Champion and All-American. In 1979, Russ moved to Nashville
as the track coach for the Harpeth Hall School and in 1986
became the Athletic Director/Track Coach. Under her coaching,
Harpeth Hall's Track Team has won eleven State Championships,
six State Cross-Country Championships and two Team Relay State
Championships. She has a total of nineteen State Championships
- more than any other coach of any sport in the history of
Tennessee prep sports. She was inducted into the University
of Memphis Athletic Hall of Fame in 1987.
Verties
Sails, Jr. - in his 26th year as head men's basketball
coach at Southwest Tennessee Community College (formerly Shelby
State), has guided his teams to eighteen West Division titles,
thirteen TJCCAA State Championships and seven Region VII Championships
and national tournament appearances. Sails holds a 539-219
career record at STCC for a .711 winning percentage and has
been named TJCCAA Coach of the Year nine times. Sails came
to Southwest after serving as assistant coach at the University
of Memphis for five years. Earlier in his career he compiled
a 132-35 record at Melrose High School in Memphis where his
team won the 1974 State Championship with a perfect 35-0 record.
He was voted high school Coach of the Year in 1970 and 1974.
Sails was inducted into the Tennessee Junior and Community
College Sports Hall of Fame in 1994 and to the National Junior
College Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 2004.
John
W. Overton (posthumous) - a native Nashvillian, he
attended Yale University where he was a celebrated member
of the Track Team. Overton set or tied world records in the
two-mile relay, the 1000-yard and the cross-country. At the
1916 Millrose Games in New York's Madison Square Garden, he
won the Rodman Wanamaker one-and-one-half mile and began a
flamboyant rivalry with Joie Ray (three-time Olympian). Capable
of becoming the world's first four-minute miler, at the height
of his track career, Overton reported for military duty in
World War I. By his own request, he was transferred to the
front and led his company to a heroic battle with the Germans
in the Second Battle of the Marne. Overton lost his life in
a heroic act of leadership. Sportswriter Grantland Rice marked
the occasion with a forty-line poem entitled "A Marine
Comes Home".
Petie
Siler (posthumous) - during his thirty-year coaching
career (beginning in 1916), he coached 25 years at Morristown
High School, three years at Knoxville High School, and one
year each at Knoxville Central High School and LaFollette
High School. During that time, he coached a state championship
football team at Knoxville High in 1920, coached Morristown
High football teams to 167 wins, 95 losses and 12 ties. His
Knoxville High track team won the state championship in 1922
and his Morristown High track team won state championships
in 1927 and 1928. He coached 11 boys' and girls' basketball
teams to district or east Tennessee championships and his
Morristown High two-mile relay team set a national high school
record in Chicago in 1928. Siler, affectionately called "Petie",
was more than a coach of athletes. He was a force in Morristown
that affected the lives of almost all of the students in Morristown.
He helped build a 9-hole golf course, a bowling center for
kids, supervised a local swimming pool in the summer, and
had an intramural program for every high school student. The
Morristown High School gymnasium was named after him in 1954,
the football field in 1998 and the Petie Siler Park in Morristown
was named in 1998. He was inducted into the East Tennessee
Chapter of the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame in
1966, into the Northeast Tennessee Hall of Fame in 1993 and
into the TSSAA Hall of Fame in 2004.
Honorees
and "Tennessean of the Year"
Amateur
Team of the Year - Cumberland
University Baseball
Female
Amateur Athlete of the Year - Josie
Hahn,
Vanderbilt University
Male
Amateur Athlete of the Year - Luke
List,
Vanderbilt University
Male
Amateur Athlete of the Year - DeAngelo
Williams,
University of Memphis
Professional
Team of the Year - Memphis
Grizzlies
Oustanding
Achievement Award - Jerry
West
Tennessean
of the Year - 2004
Tennessee Olympians
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