Duke works swing shift

Hall of Fame athletes rarely appear at their induction ceremonies while they are halfway through one of their games.

PGA Tour member Ken Duke said it was a relatively easy feat for him.

Duke was among 11 athletes and coaches inducted Friday night into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.

Earlier in the afternoon, Duke was playing golf in the second round of the Honda Classic at PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Shortly after making the cut, Duke jumped ona plane and flew from Miami to Little Rock, arriving at the convention center just 15 minutes before dinner was served.

Duke was excused for lagging behind the arrival of the other inductees: David Bazzel, Gary Blair, Bennie Fuller, Stephanie Strack Mathis, Dennis Winston, Don Campbell, Alvy Early, Ken Stephens and representatives for Jim Barnes and Harry Vines.

Duke said the PGA Tour arranged for him to start early Friday so he would have enough time to make it to his induction ceremony.

“We talked about it [with PGA Tour officials],” Duke said. “If it wasn’t for something like this, they probably wouldn’t have done it,but they do things like this for special things, for special awards, and luckily they did that for me for this.”

Duke, a native of Hope, was raised in Arkadelphia and graduated from Henderson State before turning professional in 1994. Duke earned his first PGA Tour victory last June at the Travelers Championship when he birdied the second hole of a sudden-death playoff with Chris Stroud.

Now Duke is looking for his second title, and he remains in contention at the Honda Classic. He will tee off at 8:26 a.m. Central today, tied for 52nd at 1 under par, 10 strokes behind tournament leader Rory McIlroy.

But that wasn’t on his mind Friday night in Little Rock.

“A tournament is a tournament,” Duke said. “We’re here tonight to celebrate this, to soak this in, and we’ll play golf tomorrow.”

Duke was inducted to the Arkansas Golf Hall of Fame last fall.

“To get into the Arkansas Golf Hall of Fame in October, and then this comes right after it, that’s all you could ask for,” Duke said. “I never would’ve thought about this as a little kid in Arkadelphia.”

Jay Fox, executive director of the Arkansas State Golf Association, was at Friday night’s banquet to witness Duke’s celebration. He said there were few honors that would surpass this for any Arkansas golfer.

“Unless you got inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, this would be the ultimate,” Fox said.

Bazzel was a four-year letterman with the Arkansas Razorbacks football team from 1981-85, and started at linebacker his last three seasons. Since his playing days, he has become a popular public speaker and is currently co-host of a morning-drive radio program at KABZ-FM, 103.7, in Little Rock.

Bazzel also created the Broyles Award, which is given annually to the top assistant coach in college football; the Golden Boot, a trophy presented annually to the winner of the Arkansas-LSU football game; and the Cliff Harris Award, given each year to the best small-college defensive player in the nation.

Bazzel said it was nice to be on the receiving end of an awards ceremony.

“I usually don’t get honors, so this means a lot,” he said. “This is different. It’s humbling. It’s awkward, but it’s reaffirming to me that I made the right decision over 30 years ago. When I left Florida [as a teenager to play football for the Razorbacks], I never thought anything like this would happen.”

Blair was inducted for his success as Arkansas’ women’s basketball coach from 1993-03 and at Texas A&M (2003-present), where he won an NCAA Championship in 2011. He is 667-290 over his career and one of three coaches in women’s basketball who have led two schools to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament.

Friday night marked the sixth time Blair has been inducted into a Hall of Fame. He is also a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, the Southland Conference Hall of Fame, the Stephen F. Austin Athletics Hall of Fame, and the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame.

“I think this ranks right up there with all of the honors, because my family still lives in Arkansas,” said Blair, who has a home in Fayetteville where his wife, Nan Smith-Blair, is an associate professor of nursing at Arkansas. “This is the place where I’m going to retire, and I want to come back and watch my grandkids play.”