Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame – Class of 2011

The 2011 Class of the Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame will be officially announced to the public prior to the Greensboro Grasshoppers Game on Thursday, June 23, 2011 at NewBridge Bank Park in Greensboro.

The formal induction of the Class of 2011 Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame will be on Monday, September 19, 2011 in the Greensboro Coliseum at 6:30 pm. Reserved tables are $750 and individual tickets are $60 and can be purchased by contacting the Greensboro Sports Commission at 336-378-4499 or www.greensborosports.org.

Collegiate Affiliations/Professional:
Eddie Bridges- Elon
Joey Cheek- Princeton
Larry Dempsey- Guilford College; Minor League Baseball; Professional Golf
Bradley Faircloth- Duke Football, ACC
Herb Goins- Duke Football
Chuck Hartman- UNC Baseball, High Point and Virginia Tech Coach
Freddy Johnson- Greensboro College Basketball and Athletics Hall of Fame
Tommy Langley- UNC Golf
Angie Polk-Jones- UNCG Women’s Basketball
Eddie Pope- UNC Soccer
Maurice Spencer- North Carolina Central Football; NFL New Orleans Saints
Tripp Welborne- Michigan Football
Claude Manzi- High School Coach- College Unknown
John Morris- High School Coach- College Unknown

Here are Previous Hall of Fame Classes:
Class of 2005
Robert B. “Bob” Jamieson
Anthony J. “Tony” Simeon
Wesley C. “Wes” Ferrell
“Super Lou” Hudson
Sandra Kay Yow
Bob McAdoo
Marge Burns
Charlie Sanders
John Russell
Richard B. “Rick” Ferrell
Cal Irvin
Jerry Steele
James Atkinson

Class of 2006
Smith Barrier
Charlie Harville
Dale Morey
Jim Paschal
Jim Staton
Maxine Allen
Gerald Austin
Jack Jensen
Curly Neal
Gene Littles
Marion Kirby

Class of 2007
Hal “Skinny” Brown
Vince Evans
Emil “Emo” Showfety
Bill Furcron
Page Marsh
Mac Morris
Mike Raybon
Bob Sawyer
George Foree
Debbie Yow
Michael Parker

Class of 2008
Dr. Herbert “Herb” Appenzeller
Lynne Agee
Jeff Lynn Bostic
Joe Earl Bostic
Dick Kemp
Danny Manning
Bodie McDowell
Ken Rush
Floyd Lemuel (Pep) Young

Class of 2009
Nelson Bobb
Richard “Dick” Broadus Culler
Sammy Johnson
Allen Morris
Siri Lynn Mullinix
William Douglas “Doug” Henderson, Sr.
Haywood Franklin Jeffires
Johnny Evans
William “Bill” Hayes

Class of 2010
Joseph Bryan
Bob Doss
Bill White
Don Corbett
Jeff Davis
Sharron Frahm
Stuart Maynard
Benny Phillips
C.K. Siler
Irwin Smallwood
Fred Whitfield
Otis Foster Jr.
Donald Moore

Here’s the Official Press Release:

14 NEW MEMBERS BRING GUILFORD COUNTY SPORTS HALL OF FAME TOTAL TO 78

GREENSBORO – Fourteen new members, including Guilford County’s first Olympic gold medal winner, have been named to the Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame in the Class of 2011 announced Thursday.

The Guilford County HOF was created in 2005 and the new members bring the total to 78.

The 2011 class consists of former athletes, coaches and administrators. Topping the list of athletes is Joey Cheek, the speed skater who won the gold medal in the 500 meters in the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Other former athletes to be inducted are Tripp Welborne (Page High School and Michigan football), Maurice Spencer (Page, N.C. Central and New Orleans Saints football), Eddie Pope (Southwest Guilford, North Carolina and U.S. National soccer), Angie Polk-Jones (UNCG basketball) and Tommy Langley (amateur golf).

The coaches are Freddy Johnson (Greensboro Day School boys’ basketball), Herb Goins (High Point Andrews football) and Chuck Hartman (High Point College baseball).

The administrators are Bradley Faircloth (college official and ACC Supervisor of Football Officials) and Eddie Bridges (wildlife conservationist).

The first five classes included deceased inductees. Last year, a Legends Class was created for posthumous honors. Three inductees join the HOF on this basis in 2011 – amateur golfer Larry Dempsey and former high school coaches Claude Manzi and John Morris.

All members of the class will be formally presented at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Greensboro Grasshoppers game at NewBridge Bank Park. They will be inducted at a banquet on Sept. 19 at 6:30 p.m. at the Greensboro Coliseum. For ticket information, call (336) 378-4499 or go online at www.greensborosports.org.

Brief biographies of the class of 2011 follow:

EDDIE BRIDGES
Eddie Bridges has worked tirelessly as an advocate for wildlife conservation and outdoor sports. A graduate of Elon, where he played football, he made Greensboro his home in the late 1950s. He served on the state Wildlife Resources Commission from 1977-89, rewriting the state game laws among other accomplishments. He proposed and founded the Wildlife Endowment Fund, which sells lifetime hunting and fishing licenses. He founded and currently serves as executive director of the N.C. Habitat Foundation, which acquires and preserves open spaces for wildlife. In 2004 he won a $50,000 grant to fund conservation efforts.

JOEY CHEEK
People usually don’t think of speed skaters as being from the South, but Greensboro native Joey Cheek proved to be an exception. The Dudley High School graduate burst on the scene in 2002, winning an Olympic bronze medal in the 1,000 meters in at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City. He followed that up at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy, with a silver medal in the 1,000 and a gold in the 500. He was elected by American Olympians to carry the flag in the closing ceremonies. In World Championship competition, Cheek earned a gold medal in the sprint and three bronze medals. He is the co-founder and president of Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness of the crisis in Darfur, Sudan.

BRADLEY FAIRCLOTH
Few people know more about officiating football games than Bradley Faircloth. He worked as an official for 25 years, including 17 with the ACC, and called more than 200 games, including seven bowl games. In 1983 he became the ACC’s Supervisor of Football Officials and served in that capacity through 1998. That year he received the Top Official award from the National Football Foundation for his contributions to officiating. A native of Fayetteville, Faircloth graduated from Grimsley, where he played football and basketball. A graduate of Duke, Faircloth lettered three years as a guard and tackle for the Blue Devils. Faircloth also served as the Greensboro Greater Open General Chairman in 1964 and was inducted into the North Carolina High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 2010.

HERB GOINS
Andrews High School in High Point enjoyed a tremendous run in football under the 16-year guidance of coach Herb Goins, winning the state 4-A championship in 1976 and the 3-A title in 1991. He compiled an overall coaching record of 149-73-4 between Andrews and Northern Durham. He was head coach of the North Carolina Shrine Bowl team in 1985. Goins also coached wrestling for five years and golf for 22 years. After retiring from coaching, he served as Athletic Director for Guilford County Schools for 12 years, retiring in 2008. Goins was a three time letterman and two-year starter at guard for the Duke Blue Devils.

CHUCK HARTMAN
The baseball program at High Point College really got going under the leadership of coach Chuck Hartman. During his 19 seasons the Panthers won 10 Carolinas Conference championships, five NAIA district titles and made two NAIA national tournaments. On the way to a 483-225 record, he was named conference and District 26 coach of the year numerous times and NAIA national coach of the year in 1976. When Hartman left High Point after 1978, he went to Virginia Tech. He coached the Hokies for 25 years and won 889 games, retiring after the 2003 season. Hartman ranks sixth in all-time NCAA coaching wins with a record of 1444-816-8.

FREDDY JOHNSON
Few high school coaches can match the success of Freddy Johnson of Greensboro Day School. During his 33 years as boys basketball coach and athletics director, his teams have won 802 games, 21 conference titles and seven state championships, the most recent in 2006. His teams have taken nine Little Four Invitational tournament championships. In addition, Johnson coached the AAU North Carolina Gaters, placing second in the 10-under national tournament in 1997 and fourth in the 12-under tournament in 1999. Johnson was inducted into the Greensboro College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009.

TOMMY LANGLEY
For nearly 60 years, Tommy Langley of High Point has been making his mark on amateur golf. His first title came in 1948 and the last one happened in 2006, when he won the Senior Pine Needles 4-Ball championship. In between he racked up numerous championships, including the Southern Conference individual title in 1952 with North Carolina – before the ACC was ever formed. He participated in the USGA National Senior Amateur four times and was High Point city champion four times in a span from 1949 to 1993. Langley won his first North Carolina State Championship at age 16 (1948) and his last at age 73.

ANGIE POLK-JONES
Perhaps the top women’s basketball player in history at UNCG, Angie Polk-Jones remains the Spartans’ all-time leading scorer with 1,585 points. She was a Division III All-America and led her teams to a 93-22 record in four years. She was the school’s first athlete to have a jersey retired in 1989 and led the Spartans to a third place finish in the 1988 NCAA Division III Championship. She was head girls’ basketball coach at Grimsley for eight years and an assistant coach at UNCG for three seasons. Since 1990 Polk-Jones has had a distinguished career in Guilford County education. She currently is principal of the new Middle College High School at UNCG.

EDDIE POPE
Few American soccer players have had careers to match that of Eddie Pope. He played four years at Southwest Guilford High School (and was the football place-kicker for three years and a baseball player one year) and four at North Carolina, where he earned All-ACC honors. He played for the U.S. National Team for 11 seasons, appearing in the 1996 Olympics and 1998 World Cup, and played 12 years in Major League Soccer. He was the MLS Defender of the Year in 1997. His primary assignment was to shut down the opponent’s best scorer, but Pope also scored the game-winning goal to give DC United the first MLS title. In April of 2011 he was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

MAURICE SPENCER
A football, basketball and track star at Page High School, Maurice Spencer continued his football career at North Carolina Central and in the NFL. He played for three MEAC championship teams at Central and played in the Senior Bowl and EastWest games. He was the first defensive back taken in the 1974 draft, by New Orleans, and played there four years, starting 30 games, before his career was cut short by a spinal cord injury. He founded and is chairman of the board of The Spencer Foundation for Spinal Cord Research and Rehabilitation at Duke University Medical Center.

TRIPP WELBORNE
A football standout at Page High School, the Pirates went 40-1-1 and won two state championships in Tripp Welborne’s career. Recruited to Michigan as a wide receiver, he switched to the secondary as a sophomore and played on three Big Ten championship teams. Welborne made All-America as a safety his junior and senior seasons, intercepted nine passes in his career and returned 70 punts for 803 yards. While at Page he also starred in basketball, where he was an exceptional long-range shooter before the 3-point line, and baseball.

LEGENDS CLASS

LARRY DEMPSEY
Although best known for his amateur golf career, Larry Dempsey was an outstanding all-around athlete. He played football, basketball, baseball and golf at Greensboro Senior High (now Grimsley) and was a two-time all-state player in football. He attended Guilford College and lettered in four sports there in 1948 and played four years of minor-league baseball. As a golfer, Dempsey was low amateur in the GGO twice and tied another time, won numerous club and senior championships around Greensboro and was a member of four straight Carolinas Golf Association teams in the 1950s.

CLAUDE MANZI
The first football coach at Smith High School, Claude Manzi built a program that turned out the likes of future NFL players Vince Evans (Chicago Bears), Joe Bostic (St. Louis Cardinals) and Jeff Bostic (Washington Redskins). Manzi’s teams ran the single wing offense well into the 1970s. He coached 15 years (1963-77), compiling a record of 85-65-6 and advancing to the state playoffs many times. He served as athletic director from 1977-88. The football stadium at Smith was named in his honor in 1984. Manzi was a graduate of Elon, where he played football. He died in 1994.

JOHN MORRIS
A native of Hertford, N.C., Morris made his mark in Guilford County from 1974-84. He was the head football coach and athletics director at Andrews from 1974-76, winning a conference championship in 1975, but had to give up coaching when he developed diabetes and had both legs amputated in 1976. He then became AD for the High Point City Schools from 1976 until his death at age 48 in 1984. Morris was recognized as an outstanding coach (overall 120-58-6 record at Roxboro, Reidsville and Andrews) and an outstanding leader as an administrator.

FOR MORE INFORMATION- CONTACT- Demp Bradford, Vice President of Operations, Greensboro Sports Commission- 336-378-449