By By Adam Robinson – Sports Editor
This past Wednesday I was doing some cleaning up around my desk and in my filing cabinets when I came across some interesting papers. I have seen these papers before, the first time I was cleaning out the filing cabinet shortly after I was hired in September of last year.
If I remember correctly, I looked over the papers but I guess I didn't think much about it. Well, this second time I got to looking over them and thought about what I was seeing.
The papers are titled facts about W.S. Neal football 1940-1986, the W.S. Neal football Hall of Fame purpose, the W.S. Neal football Hall of Fame history, and other papers about W.S. Neal football history with scores from the first season to about 1999.
I don't know where they came from, but it was interesting looking over them.
After reading them for a while, my question to you readers and fans is does this Hall of Fame thing still exist?
According to the documents, it says in the winter of 1987, coach Dick Chastain decided to honor great Eagle players of the past and by this to stimulate the present Eagle players to try harder to achieve their potential.
Coach Steve Lambert was assigned the duty of putting together the group of athletes with two athletes from each of the 47 football teams of the past to nominate 25 players who they thought should make up the Hall of Fame.
Along with 94 men, 20 Neal fans and boosters were asked to nominate their 25 best and a committee was in charge of counting the nominees.
Along with the 25 players selected, five coaches were inducted.
According to the documents, a picture of these 30 men are placed in the main hall near the offices in the high school building at Neal and in the field house.
I have to admit, I have never been in the main office at the school, but I have been in the field house and to my recollection, I have not seen these.
Are they in the school and is the Hall of Fame still carried on?
According to the list, the five coaches are Ray Quimby (1940), J.M. Mays (1942-1944), H.T. “Buddy” Taylor (1955-1961), Jack Akin (1962-1966), and David E. Salter (1967-1975)
If you would like, could you share information about this and maybe I can continue to write about what I have found.
The 25 players originally inducted into the W.S. Neal High School Eagle football Hall of Fame are: Homer Douglas, Roland Gibson, Jimmy Maddox, Billy Whittle, Bob Rhienhart, Tommy Browder, Ronnie Kirkland, Ronnie Golden, Jim Fountain, Gordon Smith, Donnie Fountain, Guy Langham, Bernie Wall, Terry (Turkey) Dubose, Jerry Wayne Steel, Jimmy Ray (Peter Rabbit) McCormick, Tony Crook, Donnie Crutchfield, Jimmy McArthur, Tim Wall, Calvin Culliver, Mike Sutton, Ron Brown, Horace Bradley, and Kenny Littles.
In 1988, Burns Blackwell and Terry Langham were added to the list of Hall of fame names on homecoming 1987 and Harry Weaver was added as an honorary member.
I thought it was interesting. If anyone would like to enlighten me of this, maybe I can continue to write on what I have found and what is told to me.
Just email me at sports@brewtonstandard.com.
Hey, you never know what you will find in your files when you do a little cleaning.
I hope all have a great week and until Wednesday when we meet again here or out in the sports world, God bless.