RALEIGH — The North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame announced last week that 15 people will be enshrined in its Class of 2023.
The headliners for the new class include Tennessee men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes, former NBA star Jerry Stackhouse and former PGA Tour golfer Curtis Strange. The 59th annual Induction Celebration will be held April 21 at the Raleigh Convention Center.
“This year’s class joining the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame once again reflects the great variety and rich sports heritage that the hall highlights for our state,” Jerry McGee, president of the hall’s board of directors, said in a press release. “This group and their collective accomplishments in specific areas, from great athletes to highly successful coaches to special contributors, create another exciting chapter for the hall. We are extremely excited about honoring these outstanding individuals in our induction celebration.”
Jason Brown, Jeff Davis, Donald Evans, Tom Fazio, Ellen Griffin, Tom Higgins, Clarkston Hines, Bob “Stonewall” Jackson, Trudi Lacey, Ronald Rogers, John Sadri and Rosie Thompson will also be joining the hall in April.
The 15-member group will bring the total number of inductees to 400.
Barnes, a Hickory native and Lenoir-Rhyne graduate, is currently at Tennessee and has also had coaching stints at George Mason, Providence, Clemson and Texas. With an overall record of 772-398 through his 36-year career, Barnes is one of the most successful coaches to ever come out of North Carolina and was named the Naismith College Coach of the Year in 2019.
Stackhouse, a Kinston native and consensus first-team All-American at UNC, was the third overall selection in the 1995 NBA Draft and had an 18-year career. The two-time NBA All-Star is currently the head coach at Vanderbilt following stints as an assistant with NBA’s Grizzlies and Raptors.
With the inclusion of Strange, the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame will be welcoming a golfer who won 17 PGA Tour championships after a renowned collegiate career at Wake Forest. The native of Norfolk, Virginia, was the 1974 NCAA individual champion as he led the Demon Deacons to a national championship. Strange was then one of the PGA Tour’s leading players, topping the PGA Tour earnings list in 1985, 1987 and 1988.
Hines, a star wide receiver at Duke, was a three-time first-team all-ACC selection as well as the ACC Player of the Year in 1989. As one of the most prolific wide receivers in conference history, he established school, ACC and NCAA records during his career with the Blue Devils. Hines was elected into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2010.
The class also includes Jackson, a World War II veteran who returned to play four years at what is now North Carolina A&T and then became the first black player from an HBCU to be drafted by an NFL team. After playing for both the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles, Jackson coached football at Johnson C. Smith University and then spent more than 30 years working for North Carolina Central University.
The N.C. Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1963 and exists as a permanent exhibit on the third floor of the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. Featuring more than 200 significant objects and memorabilia donated by inductees, the museum is open with free admission Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.
Banquet ticket information is available online at NCSHOF.org or by phone at 919-845-3455. A news conference will be held at 2 p.m. at the convention center on the day of the inductions.