FAYETTEVILLE — All-Americans, national champions, College World Series participants, a trail blazing administrator and the most successful women’s basketball coach at the University of Arkansas highlight the UA Sports Hall of Honor Class of 2022 announced Wednesday.
Gary Blair, a 37-year head coaching veteran who led Arkansas women’s basketball to its only NCAA Final Four in 1998, leads the class, along with Ruth Cohoon, the school’s first director of women’s athletics.
The class, voted on by former Razorback letter winners in association with the A Club, will be inducted during a ceremony at the Walton Arts Center on Sept. 16, the night before the Razorbacks face Missouri State and former coach Bobby Petrino in a home football game.
The nine-member class also features two football players in Joe Adams and Dale White, and two baseball players on CWS teams in Bill Bakewell and Andy Skeels.
Ron Huery was a key men’s basketball standout on Coach Nolan Richardson’s first Final Four team in 1990. Ace all-arounder Katherine Grable was the school’s first NCAA individual champion in gymnastics. Ray Doakes was a high jump national champion and All-American on Razorback track and field teams that won all 16 NCAA and SEC championships during his career.
Blair, who guided Texas A&M to the 2011 national championship, will be joining his ninth hall of fame. He’s also set for induction into the Texas A&M Athletics Hall of Fame on Sept. 2, during the Labor Day weekend.
“The month of September is going to be very special,” Blair said Wednesday. “The next weekend after Arkansas will be the Arkansas-A&M football game in Arlington that I never miss. All my Arkansas relatives will be coming for that.”
Blair’s daughter, Paige, and son, Matt, both live in Northwest Arkansas.
Blair recalled being wowed at his first SEC meetings in the spring of 1993 with the Razorbacks heading into their third basketball season in the league.
“You walk in and there’s Pat Summitt and Jim Foster,” he said “There’s Andy Landers and Sue Gunter. There’s Van Chancellor, Joe Ciampi and Rick Moody, and you just go down the list. And you feel in awe of the coaches that are in the league.
“It was a dream come true that I got that chance. The people of Arkansas embraced me and let me build. You don’t walk in to a school and go against those teams that have already been to so many Final Fours. They’re not going down. You’ve got to find a way to go up, and that’s what we did. We mainly did it with a lot of Arkansas kids around, and I recruited Texas, the Midwest, Missouri and Oklahoma.”
Four of Blair’s Arkansas players — Shameka Christon, Sytia Messer, Amber Shirey and Christy Smith — preceded him into the UA Sports Hall of Honor.
Blair compiled a 198-110 record in 10 seasons with the Razorbacks and had a 852-348 career mark.
Adams, of Little Rock, is the only punt returner in school history to win All-America honors when he returned four punts for touchdowns in 2011 and averaged 16.9 yards per return.
A consensus All-American and SEC special teams player of the year that season, Adams was the inaugural winner of the Johnny “The Jet” Rodgers Award, which honors the top return specialist in college football.
Adams had 164 career catches for 2,410 yards and 17 touchdowns and posted seven 100-yard games. He was taken by the Carolina Panthers in the fourth round of the 2012 NFL Draft.
Bakewell was a right-handed pitcher and frequent closer who posted 15 career saves and helped Coach Norm DeBriyn’s 1979 team become the first in school history to play at the College World Series, where the Razorbacks were runners-up.
Bakewell allowed just 12 hits in 31 innings in 1977, when he had a team-best 1.16 ERA. He also led the team with a 1.37 ERA in 1978. Drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in the 28th round of the 1978 MLB Draft, Bakewell elected to return to school and was part of the 1979 College World Series finalists.
Cohoon joined the UA as a swimming instructor in 1965. After volunteering to do extra administrative work in 1971, she was elevated to women’s athletic director the following year following the passing of landmark Title IX legislation. She was the catalyst in the creation of the women’s athletic department and consistently fought for better funding, equipment and scholarships, paving the way for opportunities for hundreds of female athletes.
Doakes cleared a school-record 7 feet, 7 1/4 inches indoors in 1994 and was a six-time first-team All-American on Arkansas teams that won four SEC triple crowns and three NCAA triple crowns. The NCAA high jump champion in 1995, Doakes was the first person to claim four consecutive SEC Indoor high jump titles. His school record clearance remains the SEC Indoor Championship record.
Grable won the vault and floor exercise titles at the 2014 NCAA gymnastics championships while also finishing second in the all-around competition. Her vault score of 9.975, which included 10s from three of the six judges, remains tied for the highest winning score at the NCAA championships with LSU’s Rheagan Courville. She helped the Razorbacks advance to four NCAA regionals from 2011-14, and one NCAA Super Six appearance in 2012, where she claimed the individual balance beam title.
Huery, of Memphis, scored 1,550 points, 13th on the school’s all-time scoring list, during his 134-game career. He earned All-Southwest Conference honors in 1988 after averaging 13.4 points per game. Huery ranks sixth in UA history with 351 assists and ninth with 207 steals. Huery played on two Southwest Conference championship teams and he averaged 10 points and 3 rebounds on the Razorbacks’ 1990 Final Four team.
Skeels was an All-American and All-SWC catcher with a .763 slugging percentage and a then school-record 18 home runs for the 1987 Razorbacks, who went 57-16-1 and reached the CWS. Skeels posted a .358 career batting average and .681 slugging percentage to rank fourth and second, respectively, in school history. Skeels, the first New Zealand born person to appear in uniform as a player or coach in a major league game, played professionally between 1987-2001 for the San Diego, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers organizations and spent 34 years in professional baseball.
White, a four-year letter winner (1975-78), played nose guard alongside Pro Football Hall of Famer Dan Hampton. A native of Benton, White racked up 230 tackles, 156 solo, 27 tackles for loss and 10 forced fumbles or recoveries for Razorback teams that had a combined record of 35-10-2.
White was on teams that downed Georgia 31-10 in the 1976 Cotton Bowl and upset No. 2 Oklahoma 31-6 in the 1978 Orange Bowl.