WholeHogSports
Four nonfootball athletes named to UA Hall of Honor
Posted on Sunday, August 31, 2008
URL: http://www.wholehogsports.com/nwat/68664/
ROGERS — With five from football inducted plus retired athletics director / football coach Frank Broyles honored with the Distinguished Service Award for his 50 Razorback years, it figured football would dominate Friday night’s University of Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor banquet at the John Q. Hammons Center.
However Razorback baseball got some innings in, too. Razorback basketball scored, as did a double dose of track.
The non-football additions Friday in the UA’s nine-member 20 th Sports Hall of Honor class include basketball guard Darrell Walker, outfielder Ryan Lundquist and past NCAA track champions Daniel Lincoln and Lady Razorback Gi-Gi Miller-Johnson.
From football they were joined by old grads Tommy Brasher, Rodney Brand, Bruce James, George McKinney and the late Steed White.
Walker, Lundquist, Lincoln and Miller-Johnson got to watch their old UA coaches see them return with honor to their alma mater.
Eddie Sutton, Arkansas’ basketball coach from 1974-75 to 1984-85, and now retired and living in Stillwater, Okla., and his wife Patsy came back to Arkansas to see Walker, their one-time discipline headache become like a son, come home.
Stay home may be more like it. Though Chicago-born, Walker, a 1981-83 Razorback letterman after one junior college year at Westark (now UA-Fort Smith ) has called Arkansas home since 1979. He’s married to former Lady Razorback track great Lisa Sparks and living in Little Rock even through a long NBA career playing and coaching, including currently assisting the Detroit Pistons.
“ I am truly a Hog through and through, ” Walker told the banquet. “ You are the best fans in the world. ”
Gazing from the dais to the table where his wife and the Suttons sat, Walker said, “ Coach Sutton is here tonight. I love you, man. You are one of the reasons I am standing here right now. Hopefully you get voted into the Hall of Fame. It’s long overdue for you. ”
Applause came fast and enthusiastically.
Then laughter.
“ In practice, on the back of our shorts was defense, dedication and discipline, ” Walker said. “ I had two of those down, but the discipline part came later. There were times I’m sure Coach wanted to run me off but there was one lady here tonight who wouldn’t let him run me off. I want Patsy Sutton to stand up. ”
Lundquist, a Fort Smith native whose father played Razorback football and two uncles played Razorback baseball, called out his Razorback coach, Norm DeBriyn, a Razorback Foundation vice president since retiring coaching the baseball Hogs from 1969-2003.
Lundquist lettered from 1996-99. His 24 home runs in a season remains a school record, but that’s not the record Lundquist laughingly discussed Friday.
“ First day of practice as a Razorback, ” Lundquist said of his freshman year, “ we’re having intrasquad and Coach DeBriyn is out in center field on his famous megaphone. It’s bases loaded, and the game on the line and I moved out of the way of a pitch.
“ Coach DeBriyn started in from center field to let me know this is college baseball, not high school. And as he got closer, he got louder and louder until he was finally standing in front of me, still screaming into the megaphone. ”
Lundquist got the message loud and clear.
“ I very quickly taught myself to stand in the box, ” Lundquist said. “ In fact, one of the records that I did set, was the career record for hit by pitches. Coach, thank you for that. ”
Lundquist then noted DeBriyn’s 1, 000-plus victories and character saying, “ I am proud to have played for a pillar of the community. ”
Lincoln, a four-time NCAA champion, three in the steeplechase and one in the 10, 000, now is in med school at UAMS in Little Rock. A high school graduate from the Arkansas School of Mathematics and Science in Hot Springs, Lincoln arrived at the UA in 1999 as a walk-on for John McDonnell.
McDonnell this summer retired to an emeritus office at Barnhill Arena after coaching the Razorback cross country, indoor and outdoor track teams to an unprecedented 42 NCAA championships and 84 conference championships.
“ I just hope in my induction, people can add something else to the legacy of John McDonnell, ” Lincoln said.
Gi-Gi Miller-Johnson (she was Gi-Gi Miller when she won the NCAA women’s triple jump and SEC heptathlon as a Lady Razorback transfer in 2000 and 2001 ) made UA women’s assistant coach Lonnie Greene a prophet.
“ It seems like it was yesterday, ” Miller-Johnson said of 2000, “ that he told me I would one day be in the University of Arkansas Hall of Honor. ”
Miller-Johnson is still a world class athlete and now coached by her husband, Chris Johnson, at State College, Pa.
Still she’s never forgotten that UA staff still on staff, head coach / distance Lance Harter and assistants Greene and Bryan Compton.
Greene, sprints and jumps, and Compton, throws, combo-coached her in the heptathlon.
“ I have been so blessed to have so many mentors in my life who have helped make me a winner, ” she said.