Danny Manning Selected For 2008 National Collegiate Basketball Hall Of Fame Class
April 6, 2008
SAN ANTONIO –
The voices of college basketball, the Iron Man of coaching and a pair of players who led their teams to NCAA championships, including Kansas great Danny Manning, are among seven people to be enshrined in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame on Sunday, November 23, 2008. The announcement was made Sunday by the National Association of Basketball Coaches Foundation.
The ceremony will be held at the College Basketball Experience (CBE) and Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., which opened in October, 2007. The CBE, a world-class entertainment facility that provides a multi-faceted interactive experience for fans, shares a common lobby with Sprint Center and is the home of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
The 2008 inductees include former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson, the only coach to win a national junior college title, a postseason NIT crown and the NCAA championship; Jim Phelan, who guided Mt. St. Mary College in 1,341 games and won 830 of those contests; Arnie Ferrin, the only four-time men’s basketball All-America at Utah who led the Utes to the 1944 NCAA title; and consensus player of the year Manning, who guided the Jayhawks to the 1988 NCAA championship in Kansas City.
Two outspoken and passionate individuals who are the voices of college basketball will be inducted as contributors. Billy Packer is working his 28th consecutive Final Four for CBS Sports and 34th overall while Dick Vitale has been ESPN’s lead analyst since the network began broadcasting in 1979. Both have received the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Charles Barkley, who led the Southeastern Conference in rebounding in each of his three seasons at Auburn, will be recognized as a member of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame’s founding class. Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, he is one of only four players – including Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Karl Malone – to have compiled 20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 4,000 assists in the National Basketball Association.
The founding class of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame includes all of the coaches, players and contributors with college basketball roots who have been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
In November, 2006, the inaugural class of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, all founding class members, included John Wooden, national player of the Year at Purdue and legendary coach at UCLA; former University of North Carolina coach Dean Smith, who entered the 2006-07 season as the all-time leader in career wins; Cincinnati’s Oscar Robertson, generally regarded as the game’s greatest all-around player; consummate defender and team player Bill Russell, who led San Francisco to back-to-back NCAA championships; and Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of the great game of basketball.
The 2007 induction class included the first seven who are not part of the founding class. The coaches inducted included legendary Missouri coach Norm Stewart, whose teams won 731 games; Guy Lewis, who guided Houston to five berths in the Final Four; and Charles “Lefty” Driesell, who coached four different Division I teams in the NCAA championships. They were joined by Vic Bubas, a former Duke basketball coach and the first commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference, as contributor; Notre Dame’s Austin Carr, who still holds the NCAA tournament scoring average record of 41.3 points per game; Duke’s Dick Groat, who was the National Player of the Year in 1951 and later became the Pittsburgh Pirates’ all-star shortstop and National League MVP; and Dick Barnett, who led his Tennessee State team to three straight NAIA national titles. In addition, founding class member Kareem Abdul Jabbar, arguably the most dominant player ever in NCAA history, was honored along with the “Founding Fathers” of college basketball – Forrest “Phog” Allen of Kansas, John McLendon of Tennessee State, Adolph Rupp of Kentucky and Henry Iba of Oklahoma A&M (Oklahoma State).
2008 National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame Inductees
Danny Manning, Player
One of the greatest players in the history of the storied University of Kansas basketball program, he is a true Jayhawk legend. The 6-10 forward is Kansas’ all-time leading scorer with 2,951 points and rebounder with 1,187. He was the consensus college player of the year in 1988, a two-time consensus All-America selection and a three-time Big Eight player of the year. Manning led the Jayhawks to the 1988 NCAA championship in Kansas City and was named as the most outstanding player. The number one pick in the 1988 NBA draft, he played for seven different professional teams, as a two-time NBA all-star and won the league’s Sixth Man award in 1998. He has been a member of the Kansas men’s basketball staff since 2003.
Charles Barkley, Player
He led the Southeastern Conference in rebounding in all three seasons at Auburn, earning All-America honors for the Tigers in the 1983-84 season. Barkley still holds the Auburn career record for field goal percentage at 62.6 percent and is tied for third in Auburn history with 9.6 rebounds per game. He went on to an outstanding career in the National Basketball Association and is one of only four players – including Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Karl Malone – to have compiled 20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 4,000 assists. Barkley, inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, helped lead the United States to Olympic gold medal in 1992 and 1996.
Arnie Ferrin, Player
The only four-time All-America in the history of the University of Utah basketball program, Ferrin won the most outstanding player award in the 1944 NCAA championship, as the Utes tipped Dartmouth in the title game. He went on to lead Utah to the 1947 National Invitation Tournament (NIT) championship. Ferrin played for the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBA and Coach John Kundla for three seasons, winning titles in 1949 and 1950. He went on to become general manager of the American Basketball Association (ABA) Utah Stars and also served as director of athletics at Utah.
Billy Packer, Contributor
An outspoken advocate for college basketball, Packer is covering the Final Four for the 34th consecutive season. He has been the lead analyst on CBS’ college basketball coverage for 28 seasons and won a Sports Emmy Award in 1993 for Outstanding Sports Personality/Analyst. The author of several books on college basketball, he was honored by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as the Curt Gowdy Media Award recipient and has been inducted into the Wake Forest University and North Carolina halls of fame. The Wake Forest graduate was an All-Atlantic Coast Conference guard, helping the Demon Deacons to two ACC titles, two NCAA tournament berths and the 1962 Final Four.
Jim Phelan, Coach
The Iron Man of college basketball coaching, he became one of the game’s all-time winners with a record of 830 wins and 524 losses over the course of 49 basketball seasons. The man with the bow tie coached in 1,354 games and all at the same school – Mt. St. Mary’s College. The Philadelphia native and former basketball star at LaSalle ranks fourth in most wins all-time behind Bob Knight, Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp. The two-time national coach of the year led his team to the NCAA College Division championship in 1962 and guided The Mount in 19 seasons with at least 20 wins. After moving to Division I, his teams earned NCAA Tournament berths in 1995 and 1999 as well as the National Invitation Tournament in 1996.
Nolan Richardson, Coach
The only coach to win a national junior college title, a postseason NIT crown and the NCAA championship, he led Arkansas to 15 consecutive national postseason tournaments in his 16 seasons at Arkansas. With 13 of those appearances in the NCAA tournament, the former UTEP standout under Hall of Fame Coach Don Haskins guided the Razorbacks to three Final Fours, the 1994 NCAA championship, the 1995 championship game, six trips to the Sweet 16 and four to the Elite Eight. Combined with his five seasons at Tulsa, Richardson, who was the first Africa-American head basketball coach in the Southeastern Conference, has a record of 508-206, a winning percentage of just more than 71 percent. He has also been recognized for his contributions off the court, including receiving the prestigious Courage Award from the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) in 1995. Most recently he has been the head coach of the Mexican Olympic team.
Dick Vitale, Contributor
An enthusiastic and passionate ambassador for college basketball, Vitale joined ESPN soon after the network launched in 1979. He called the network’s first-ever basketball game on Dec. 5 of the year when DePaul topped Wisconsin and has been the face of ESPN’s college basketball coverage ever since. The energetic former University of Detroit and Detroit Pistons’ coach is also a regular contributor to ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Radio and Basketball Times. He is also active on the Board of Directors of The V Foundation and with The Boys & Girls Club of Sarasota, Fla., where he resides. The Seton Hall University graduate was recently honored by the Atlanta Tip-Off Club as the 2008 Men’s Outstanding Contributor to Basketball and is a former recipient of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Media Award.
