M-Club to name Pavilion at Stadium for Bob
Pruett, "Bring Home the Herd"
to Feature 1987
Team
The 2006
Class of the Marshall University Athletic Hall
of Fame will be inducted on October 27 with the
annual dinner at the Marshall Student Union on
Homecoming/Letter Winners Weekend. The new
members of the Hall will then be introduced at
the Homecoming game on October 28, featuring
Marshall and Tigers of Memphis at 4:30 p.m. on
Saturday.
Tickets to
the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame banquet and
reception can be ordered through the Marshall
Ticket Office in the Cam Henderson Center by
calling 696-HERD (4373) or 1-800-THE HERD
(843-4373) and are $25 each. The banquet will be
in the Don Morris Room of the Marshall Memorial
Student Center on October 27.
Baseball,
men’s and women’s basketball, football, men’s
soccer and men’s track are represented by four
athletes and two of the winningest coaches in MU
history. Elected to the Hall for 2006 are Bill
Craig, Charles “Chuck” Henry, Rick Huckabay,
Arnold “Scott” Jackson, Randy Moss and Judy
Southard, then be introduced before the
Homecoming game.
Huckabay and
Southard coached the men’s and women’s
basketball programs, respectively, to some of
their greatest successes in the 1980s, winning
numerous Southern Conference titles between
them. Huckabay took MU to three NCAA Tournaments
and one NIT, while Southard is the winningest
coach in MU women’s basketball history.
Craig was a
catcher on the three-consecutive Buckeye
Conference championship teams at Marshall and
was signed by the Boston Red Sox after
graduation. He hit .424 as a junior catcher for
baseball coach and athletic director Roy “Legs”
Hawley in 1934.
Jackson was
Marshall’s first soccer player to be put on
scholarship and the first All-SC selection for
the Herd in 1982. Jackson is just the third
soccer player to be elected to the Hall of Fame,
joining Andy Zulauf and Mark Taylor.
Henry led the
“Young” Thundering Herd in tackles in 1971 as
the nation’s youngest starter. He is in the top
ten in career tackles at MU was a four-year
starter at linebacker, rover and corner.
Moss may be
the best athlete ever produced in the Mountain
State, as he led the Herd to an I-AA
championship in 1996, then helped win Marshall’s
only indoor track championship at the 1997 SC
meet. Moss and the Herd then won the
Mid-American crown and played in MU’s first bowl
in 50 years later that same year of 1997.
Moss will be
unable to attend this year, like Chad Pennington
last year, due to NFL commitments, but will
remain elected and to be inducted at a later
date.
Craig and
Huckabay are both deceased, but will be
represented by family members at all of the
ceremonies this year.
There is a
reception in the John Marshall Room at 5:30 p.m.
and dinner is at 6:30.
On Saturday,
October 28, the new Hall of Fame members will
unveil their new tiles in the “Walk of Fame” and
have lunch at the Marshall Hall of Fame Cafe,
sponsored by the Marshall M-Club (an
organization of former Marshall athletic
participants) then join the M-Club for the
pre-game tailgate at the Joan C. Edwards
Stadium. The 2006 Class will be introduced
before kickoff of the Marshall-Tulane game,
about 4:15 p.m.
All members
of the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame are
encouraged to attend the dinner and reception,
the luncheon at the Hall of Fame Cafe in
downtown Huntington, the pre-game tailgate and
then be on the field as part of the tunnel to
welcome the new members of the class.
*****************************************************************************
Also that
weekend, the M-Club Pavilion will be dedicated
as the “Bobby Pruett M-Club Pavilion” at 3:00
p.m. the day of the Homecoming game, named for
the winningest coach in MU football history who
is also a member of the MU HOF. Pruett brought
in Ralph May to reorganize the former
letterman’s club into an organization of former
Marshall athletic participants in 1996.
The
organization now has former players, coaches,
managers, trainers, cheerleaders and “Marcos” as
members of the club. The club will have its
board meeting that morning at the Bob Hartley
Big Green Room in the Cam Henderson Center at
9:00 a.m. and all members are welcome.
The M-Club
“Bring Home The Herd” guests for the Homecoming
game will be the 1987 MU football team which
advanced to the I-AA National Championship game
against NE Louisiana in Pocatello, Idaho. It was
the Herd’s first of six National Championship
appearances as a member of I-AA, before moving
up to Division I-A in 1997.
Current Herd
head coach Mark Snyder was a All-American safety
for the Herd on that team, setting a school
record with 10 interceptions that season for the
10-5 Herd. 10 wins was an all-time high mark for
victories in the program history that stood only
one season until the 1988 team won 11 games.
Players
expected to return for the 1987 team reunion
include quarterback John Gregory, who will be an
analyst for the television broadcast of the
MU-UM game; defensive back Reggie Giles;
receiver Mike Barber; defensive back Stanley
Hall; defensive end Cecil Fletcher; tight end
Eric Ihnat; safety Tim Mitchell; linebacker Tom
Schindler; linebacker Matt Downey; and many
other stars of that outstanding team. They will
join the current Herd team in making the
“Thunder Walk” from the Cam Henderson Center to
the Joan C. Edwards Stadium before the game.
