The Arkansas Track & Field Hall of Fame will induct its 25th class, including two honorees with ties to the River Valley & Ozark Edition coverage area, on Friday in North Little Rock.
Kimmie Cleveland and Kenneth Davis, two former University of Central Arkansas athletes, are among the class of seven, which will be inducted at a 6:30 p.m. banquet in the Silver City Ballroom of the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel.
“This year’s class features three retired high school track coaches with a combined total of more than 100 years of coaching tenure in Arkansas schools,” said Ernest Miller of Conway, president of the ATFHF. “In their careers they produced many championships and sent many athletes on to successful collegiate careers. This class is also strong on sprints/hurdles with inductees having strong collegiate careers and Olympic trial competitions.”
During his high school coaching career at Warren and J.A. Fair, Cleveland, of Conway, led teams to five conference championships, three state championships and two state runner-up finishes following his track career at UCA. He sent athletes to 17 universities and colleges during his 10 years as track and field director for the Little Rock School District.
“I’m totally honored to be chosen,” said Cleveland, who grew up in Lake Village. “I don’t take it lightly. I know a whole lot of people made it happen. I always think about my mom — all of my brothers and I went to [college] on track scholarships.
“A lot of things we take for granted, but I feel thrilled and honored. I think of the Scripture — ‘The race is not won to the swift but him who endureth till the end.’”
Two of Cleveland’s children — Kyle and Kimberly — also earned track scholarships.
Davis, of Roland, earned All-Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference and NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) All-American honors four consecutive years (1986-89) at UCA as a hurdler/sprinter. He ran on the 4x400 relay team that set an AIC (Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference) record of 3:10.67 in 1987, set an AIC and school record in the 400 of 45.81 in the AIC Championships in ’89 and was on the team that bettered the school record to 3:08.70 in the 4x400 in the NAIA National Championships later that year.
Other coaches to be inducted include Danny Westbrook, who coached 35 of his 36 years at Bryant High School before retiring in 2016, leading the Hornets to six state championships, five state runner-up finishes and 17 conference championships while being named the 2004 National Federation of High School Coaches Coach of the Year for Track and Cross Country; and Leon White, whose 40-year career at Crossett and Cabot high schools led to six state championships, nine state runner-up finishes and 26 conference titles.
Other inductees include Anthony Hampton of West Memphis, a high school standout there who was the Arkansas Gazette’s Track Athlete of the Year in 1989 when he was the Class AAAA state champion in the 100-, 200- and 400-meter events, and, competing for
Arkansas State, went on to win the Sun Belt Conference 100- and 55-meter indoor titles four consecutive years while remaining undefeated in the conference in short sprints (indoor and outdoor) for four years; Lewis Pike of Camden, the AIC and NAIA 110-meter hurdle champion for Henderson State from 1974-77 who qualified for the Olympic Trials in 1976, was an NAIA
All-American in 1977 and ran for the USA in the World Games; and Doug Spencer of Warren, a Little Rock Central standout in the mid-1960s who went on to run the 440 and mile relay for the University of Alabama and continued his running career at the World Masters, USA Track and Field National Masters and Senior Olympics. He was a member of the winning 4x100 relay team at the World Masters Championships in Australia in 2001.
Miller said that until John McDonnell built a dynasty at the University of Arkansas beginning in the 1970s, track and field in Arkansas had a bigger tradition in the central part of the state.
“When the university decided to put some money in track and field and promote it, that turned out really well for John McDonnell to put them on the map,” he said. “The emphasis now is more in Fayetteville than anywhere else in Arkansas, but the old AIC schools used to have great tradition.”
McDonnell, the longtime Razorback coach who led teams to 40 national championships and five NCAA triple crowns (a sweep of the cross-country, indoor and outdoor titles in the same academic year) before retiring in 2008, was a 1996 Hall of Fame inductee. Nearly 20 of his former Razorback athletes have also been inducted.
Miller, in his fourth year as ATFHF president and a 2009 inductee, said the organization’s mission continues to be a worthy one.
“It’s important to promote the people who went before you and honor them so we can continue to emphasize track and field,” he said. “It is one of the most popular sports at the high school level in the United States. Obviously, the ones who worked hard to do it back in the day set the path for those who came later to follow in their footsteps and attain some of those same goals.”
For more information, contact Miller at (501) 329-6103.
(Donna Lampkin Stephens is a board member of the ATFHF.)