LITTLE ROCK — Texas Rangers ace Cliff Lee from Benton and famed thoroughbred jockey Calvin Borel, a regular rider at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, highlight the 2011 class of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.
Lee and Borel will be joined by football players Dick Bumpas, Ben Cowins, Bill “Sleepy” Curtis and Quinn Grovey, basketball player Jerry Carlton, coaches Cliff Horton and Carolyn Moffatt, bass fishing pioneer Forrest Wood and martial arts pioneer Haeng Ung Lee in the 11-member class to be inducted Feb. 11 during the organization’s annual induction banquet at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock. Haeng Ung Lee, Horton and Moffatt will be inducted posthumously.
Cliff Lee, who played at Benton High School and the University of Arkansas, wonthe 2008 American League Cy Young Award with the Cleveland Indians. The lefthander was traded to Philadelphia in July 2009 and won Games 1 and 5 of the World Series against the New York Yankees.
Lee was traded to Seattle in December and was later dealt to Texas on July 9. He is 3-0 in the postseason with the Rangers this month and is scheduled to pitch Game 1 of the World Series on Wednesday.
Borel, nicknamed “Calvin Bo-Rail” for his ability to go to the inside rail during races, won the Kentucky Derby in 2007 aboard Street Sense and then finished a close second behind Curlin in the Preakness Stakes.
He won the Kentucky Derby again in 2009, this time aboard the 50-1 long shot Mine That Bird. He had won the Kentucky Oaks the previous day aboard Rachel Alexandra.Two weeks later, Borel won the Preakness Stakes aboard Rachel Alexandra, becoming the first jockey to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown while riding different horses. This year, Borel rode Super Saver to a Kentucky Derby victory, becoming the first jockey to win racing’s premier event three times in a four-year span.
Bumpas, a native of Fort Smith, lettered three years for the Razorbacks, earning the Southwest Conference Defensive Player of the Year award in 1970. He is currently the defensive coordinator at TCU.
Cowins was considered one of the greatest Razorbacks running backs of all-time. He left Arkansas with a thenschool record career rushing total of 3,570 yards, since broken by Darren McFadden.
Curtis was among the top college running backs in Arkansas in the 1960s. The Marianna native was an All-Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference selection three times while playing at Arkansas Tech and was named to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s All-Decade Team for the 1960s. Hetwice led the AIC in rushing and gained more than 1,000 yards his senior season.
Grovey led the Razorbacks to back-to-back Southwest Conference titles in 1988 and 1989. He passed for 4,496 yards and rushed for 1,746 yards in four years at Arkansas.
Carlton was a two-sport star at Arkansas. He led the baseball team in batting three times with averages of .341, .375 and .382. In basketball, he was a two-time All-Southwest Conference selection in 1961 and 1962.
Wood, known as the father of the modern bass boat, founded Ranger Boats in 1968 and built it into the largest manufacturer of boats in the country. The Flippin native was appointed to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in 1998 and in 2005 had the commission’s Forrest L. Wood Crowley’s Ridge Nature Center in Jonesboro named after him. The FLW tournament and FLW Cup are also named after him, and he is a member of several halls of fame.
Horton coached men’s basketball at Central Arkansas for 14 seasons, winning 20 or more games six times, including two trips to the NAIA Tournament. He later served as UCA’s athletic director in the early 1970s.
Haeng Ung Lee was the founder, president and first grand master of the American Taekwondo Association, which he moved to Little Rock in 1977. The ATA championships remain the largest annual convention in Little Rock. Lee died of cancer in October 2000.
Moffatt built a national women’s basketball powerhouse at Ouachita Baptist, where she went 213-162 from 1965-84. She became the first female coach inducted into the NAIA Basketball Hall of Fame.
Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame inducteesThe following 11 people will be inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame during a Feb. 11 banquet at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock.
Calvin Borel ....................... Horse racing Dick Bumpas ............................. Football Jerry Carlton ...........Baseball/Basketball Ben Cowins ............................... FootballBill Curtis ................................... Football Quinn Grovey ............................ Football Cliff Horton ..............................Coaching Cliff Lee .....................................Baseball Haeng Ung Lee ....................Martial arts Carolyn Moffatt .......................Coaching Forrest Wood ..........................Outdoors
Sports, Pages 30 on 10/24/2010