The Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame has been described unflatteringly in this column in recent years.
I've called it a clique of aging white jocks celebrating their glory days at a boozy reception and induction banquet once a year. I've said some of the state's black sports standouts have been passed over for induction while better-connected whites have been installed. Most of all, I've expressed outrage that the Hall of Fame has leaned for bailout cash on friendly legislators throwing taxpayer money from their shares of that unregulated and discredited General Improvement Fund.
But now let's move forward, as they say, because the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame surely is.
I was surprised last week to open an email from Terri Conder-Johnson, executive director of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. She wrote that she agreed that the institution had been plagued by shortcomings and problems, but she said things were getting better and being done the right way.
She suggested that I open the attachment to behold the induction class this year, which will be installed this weekend.
Four African American sports giants of the state are being inducted. They are Shawn Andrews, an All-American offensive lineman for the Razorbacks who was a first-round NFL draft pick and a three-time Pro Bowler; Jerry Eckwood, a legendary high school running back from Brinkley who starred for the Razorbacks and played productively in the NFL; Brison Manor, a standout Razorback defensive tackle who became a member of the famed "Orange Crush" defense of the Denver Broncos; and Oliver Elders, beloved molder of young men in Little Rock as basketball coach at all-black Horace Mann and later at Little Rock Hall.
Andrews is a young man getting inducted in a reasonably timely manner. The others were overdue.
Conder-Johnson invited me for a visit. On Wednesday, I dropped by. She'd invited her board president--Richard Johnson, senior vice president of Simmons Bank.
I told Conder-Johnson that I had figured I was persona non grata at the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. I said I was surprised by her overture. Richard Johnson said I wasn't the only one. But he proceeded to be as open and candid as she.
They made five points, basically.
One was that they'd never again take GIF money, even if the Legislature revived it in some form, because the Hall of Fame ought to stand on whatever it can raise as a 501(c)(3).
The second was that the Hall of Fame has instituted term limits for board members to permit new blood and new thinking, and that the number of black and female members has increased.
The third was that the organization needed to be about more than a once-a-year celebration of honorees and maybe a fundraiser or two to get that celebration underwritten. It needed a public service component, and is now, as a first step, awarding college scholarships to high school athletes based on their essays about what sports participation has meant to them.
The fourth was that board members can't be considered for installation unless they are among the top vote-getters from nominee-listing mailers sent to paying members.
The fifth was to bring better business practices to the operation, from which an employee absconded with funds a few years ago. Conder-Johnson is trained in accounting and holds a master's degree in business administration.
The organization's offices are in an Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame Museum in donated space in the Verizon Arena. The museum is open for scheduled tours. The exhibits are good, not great, but I have an idea they'll get bigger and better.
I have other ideas, not that anybody asked.
The museum contains a small theater and high-definition screen on which visitors can watch a 14-minute video. As I was standing in the theater, it occurred to me that the Hall of Fame could host events there in celebration of Arkansas sports history.
What about a grainy screening of highlights from the 1964 national-championship University of Arkansas football team's victories over Texas in Austin and Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl? What about a panel discussion to follow featuring, say, quarterback Fred Marshall, offensive guard Jerry Jones and defensive back-punt returner Ken Hatfield?
I'd go to that. It might have to be moved to a larger venue, now that I think about it.
How about a retrospective video on the cultural power of schoolgirl basketball in rural Arkansas? How about a follow-up panel discussion that would include, say, Conder-Johnson?
From tiny Rose Bud where girls' basketball was bigger than the boys', she, in 1981, was among the first Title IX women's basketball scholarship recipients at the University of Central Arkansas. She became a three-time All-American for a women's team that, regrettably, still gets called the Sugar Bears.
Her background commends her well for this job, as does her willingness to engage a cranky old critic on the off-chance he'd write something positive if confronted with plain evidence.
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 04/01/2018