[September 25, 2006]

MAGNOLIA, Ark. - A former coach, a student-athlete from the golden era, four more from the modern era, and one for meritorious service, will be inducted into the 2006 Southern Arkansas University Sports Hall of Fame. SAU’s fourth Hall of Fame class will be honored at halftime of the Mulerider football game against Delta State University, September 30.

The former coach to be inducted is Monroe Ingram. Athletes to be recognized are, from the golden era, Donald Crews, and from the modern era, Billy Barnes, Al Flanigan, Don Hawkins, and Gary Wilson. Receiving meritorious induction will be the late Earl Miller.

Monroe Ingram coached basketball at Southern Arkansas University for 17 years (1980-97), and was the Mulerider baseball coach from 1971-77. Ingram posted a 257-193 record as the Mulerider head basketball coach, the second most wins in school history. He was associated with SAU from 1970 until his retirement at the end of the 1996-97 season. Ingram served as an assistant to the late W.T. Watson, who was head basketball coach from 1963-80. When Watson became full-time athletics director in 1980, he turned basketball duties over to Ingram.

Ingram won the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference (AIC) basketball championship in 1989-90, and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) District 17 championships in 1982-83 and 1989-90. He was twice named both the AIC and NAIA District 17 Basketball Coach of the Year.

Ingram also coached the Mulerider baseball team to three AIC championships in 1974, 1975, and 1977. His brilliant pitching staff of 1975 led the nation (NAIA) with a 1.16 earned run average. Ingram was named the AIC Baseball Coach of the Year three times and NAIA District 17 Baseball Coach of the Year in 1977. His teams won 107 games and lost 86 for a .554 percentage, second most in school history in both wins and percentage. Ingram also coached two AIC All-Star teams in games against the Arkansas Travelers Class AA professional baseball team.

In his collegiate playing days, Ingram was a center for the University of Central Arkansas, earning All-AIC honors in 1957-58, and 1959-60, scoring 1,062 points in 51 games, for a 20.8 average. He came to Central Arkansas from Arkansas State-Beebe Junior College. Before his SAU career, Ingram coached high school basketball at Little Rock McClellan, Waldo, and Camden. He is now retired in his native Calico Rock.

Ingram is married to the former Lou Eason. They have two sons, Dr. Jim Mark Ingram of Little Rock, and Clark Ingram of Calico Rock. The Ingram’s have three grandsons, Austin, Alex, and Andrew; and granddaughter, Ashley, all of Little Rock.

Donald Crews played football and participated in track and field from 1947-51 at what was then Magnolia A&M Junior College (now Southern Arkansas University). A native of De Queen, he made an immediate impact in his first game as a Mulerider against Henderson State, scoring a touchdown the first time he touched the football on a 65-yard interception return.

Crews played wingback in Coach Elmer Smith’s Winged T, rarely touching the ball except on reverses, but still scored, however, and often. When the Muleriders breezed to the 1951 AIC championship (7-0, 9-1 overall), he scored 14 touchdowns in 10 games, scoring 84 points. The 14 touchdowns stood as a school season record for 26 years, and they, and the points scored, still rank as the fourth most in school history. Crews was a unanimous All-AIC selection that season.

Crews was also a four-year letterman in track and field. He ran the first sub-10 second flat in this area of the country with a 9.9 time in the 100-yard dash in a meet at Louisiana Tech. After Crews’ collegiate career, he was a highly successful high school coach at Hamburg and other state schools until his retirement in 1987. While at Hamburg in 1963, he was named the Outstanding High School Football Coach by the Arkansas Athletic Association.

Crews is now retired in Hamburg. He is married to the former Dorinda Hale, originally from El Dorado. They have two daughters, Kim Veazey and Carla Kidd, and five grandchildren, Crews and Lauren Veazey, and Kirby, Carter, and Collin Kidd.

Billy Barnes came to SAU in 1967 from El Dorado. As good a scorer as the muscular 6-5 center was, it was the backboards that he owned. Barnes holds all of the Mulerider rebounding records: 1,160 in a career from 1967-71, 407 for a season in 1970-71, and for a game with an incredible 27 against Arkansas Tech in 1970-71.

During his Mulerider career, Barnes was NAIA Honorable Mention All-America, and a three-time First Team All-AIC selection from 1969-71. He is fifth in career scoring at SAU with 1,604 points, averaging 15.1 per game. Barnes is a three-time member of the SAU 400-Point Club with 454 points his junior season, 434 points as a senior, and 411points his sophomore year. As a freshman, he joined the 300-Point Club with 301 points. He twice led the Muleriders as the season scoring leader, averaging 15.8 points in 1968-69, and 17.5 in 1969-70.

Barnes led Southern Arkansas to a 73-33 record in his four years with the Muleriders and to the AIC championship in 1970-71 with a 23-5 overall record.

After graduating from SAU, Barnes signed as a free agent with the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL, and was drafted in the 11th round by the Memphis Pros, a member of the American Basketball Association, now the Utah Jazz of the NBA. He is currently director of secondary education at the Pulaski County Special School District.

Barnes has two sons, Hallan and Elliott, who signed a football scholarship with the University of Arkansas.

Al Flanigan joined the Southern Arkansas basketball team in 1968. The Magnolia native played on an AIC championship team that posted a 23-5 record in 1970-71 and on two NAIA tournament teams, in 1970-71 and 1971-72 when SAU finished with a 22-6 record. As a Mulerider, Flanigan played on teams that went 77-31 in his four-year career.

A point guard, Flanigan was a two-time First Team All-AIC selection. He holds the SAU season record for free throws made (155) in 1970-71. Flanigan is a member of the SAU 500-Point Club with 559 points scored his junior season in 1970-71, a 20.0 point average. He joined the 400-Point Club as a senior with 490 points, a 17.5 average, and made the 300-Point Club with 369 points his sophomore year, a 14.2 average. Flanigan is fourth in career scoring at SAU with 1,609 points, a 15.2 average.

Flanigan, who has had a highly-successful coaching career at Little Rock Parkview, with three state championships and six conference championships, has produced numerous NCAA Division I players, including sons, Wes, who played at Auburn, and Jason, who played at Ole Miss. Another son, Christopher, played one year at Central Arkansas. Flanigan is still coaching in Little Rock. He and his wife, Joan, also have a grandson, Allen.

Don Hawkins played football at Southern Arkansas from 1974-77. A starting tailback, Hawkins set Mulerider records for rushing attempts in a game (47 vs. Central Arkansas) and season (290), and season records for rushing touchdowns (17), and points scored (102), all in 1977. He still holds the second highest total for rushing yards in a season (1,168), which was a school record from 1977 until 1993, and ranks third in rushing touchdowns over a career with 23.

Hawkins’ 102 points in 1977 was second in the nation that season, and his 1,168 yards rushing was ninth nationally. Hawkins had seven games with over 100 yards rushing in 1977, averaging 116.8 yards a game and 4.1 yards a carry. His 47 carries against Central Arkansas also set a new AIC record.

Hawkins was SAU’s initial NAIA First Team All-America selection in 1977. He also was named First Team NAIA All-District 17 and First Team All-AIC, that year. He played defense at SAU his first two seasons as a Mulerider. Hawkins came to SAU from Longview, Texas, where he played at Pine Tree High School, and he now resides in El Dorado.

Hawkins and his wife, Beverly, have four sons, Cedric, Dion, Gregory, and Michael. He is currently employed at Great Lakes Chemcury.

Gary Wilson played baseball for the Muleriders from 1973-75. He came to SAU from Camden Fairview and set four school records as a Mulerider pitcher. Wilson still has the best earned run average for a career at SAU with an impressive 1.50, and the best ERA in a season with a sparkling 0.79 in 1975. He and the Mulerider pitching staff led the NAIA with a 1.16 ERA in 1975. Wilson set the school record for strikeouts in a season (105) in 1974 before it was broken this past spring by Cody Jones (115), and he held the career strikeout record (256) until Chris Pozza whiffed 285 from 1998-01.

Wilson, as a junior, was the first Mulerider drafted by a major league team. He skipped his senior season at SAU when he was the second player taken in the 1975 supplemental draft by the Houston Astros. Wilson went on to pitch in the majors for Houston. While in Class AA professional baseball, he defeated the Atlanta Braves as the starting pitcher of an All-Star team.

For SAU, Wilson pitched in nine games in 1973, throwing 42 innings as a freshman, with a 2-0 record, 53 strikeouts, and a 1.50 ERA. As a sophomore in 1974, he finished with a 7-6 record and a 2.00 ERA. In 13 games, he threw 87 innings, striking out 105. As a junior, he went 7-2 with a 0.70 ERA in 11 appearances, throwing 68 innings with 98 strikeouts. The Muleriders won the AIC championship that season.

Wilson was a member of the USA All-Star Team in the summer of 1975 that played in the Orient against Taiwan and Korea. While at SAU, he hurled a scoreless stint as the starting pitcher for the AIC All-Stars in 1975 against the Class AA Arkansas Travelers. He credits his mother, Ann Wilson, for his success.

Wilson and his wife, Carmen, have a daughter, Sara Bryant, and one son, Shawn. The former Mulerider great is currently employed in the Smackover Public School system.

The late Earl Miller, a Waldo native, enrolled at Southern State College (now SAU) in 1953. He became an employee at SAU in 1959 and served the University for over 45 years. Miller drove the University’s bus and served unofficially as the University’s goodwill ambassador until his unexpected death in 2005. Miller was the first-string bus driver and was a starter from the day he picked up the bus off a ship in New Orleans in 1969. He put over a million miles on the bus and never had an accident or traffic ticket in his long career.

In 2003, Miller was the recipient of the Arkansas Gerontological Society’s Distinguished Senior Employee Award. The annual award recognizes employees 55 years and older. Miller quipped, “I was hoping they would give the award to an old person.” He received the SAU Alumni Association’s 2000 Lifetime Achievement Award, and was also named the Mary Anna King-Whitehead Outstanding SAU Employee of the Year, and was nominated for Employee of the Year for the state of Arkansas.

Miller was valuable on athletic trips as a veteran traveler, knowing the locations of stadiums, field houses, arenas, etc., in various cities, the best and quickest routes, and alternate roads to reach destinations. He also never met a stranger and always knew someone at practically every stop.

A friendly and popular person around the SAU campus, he was credited with recruiting many students to enroll at Southern Arkansas on his numerous trips throughout the country.

Miller was married to the former Jeanne Milloway, and has one son, Terry.