MAGNOLIA, Ark. – Two modern era athletes, three golden era athletes, one individual for meritorious service and three for outstanding service, including one posthumously, comprise the 2012 Southern Arkansas University Sports Hall of Fame class that will be inducted at the fourth annual hall of fame banquet in the Grand Hall of the Donald W. Reynolds Campus and Community Center on the university's campus Friday.  SAU's 10th hall of fame class will also be recognized Saturday at halftime of the Mulerider football Homecoming game against Southern Nazarene. 
 
Modern era athletes to be inducted are Allard Baird (baseball) and Fred Perry (football), and golden era athletes include Jerry Camp (football), Bruce Hamlin (track & field) and Janet Cooper Wood (basketball and volleyball).  Dan Gregory, the “voice of the Muleriders”, receives the honor for meritorious service, and the three for outstanding service include the late Jay Adcox (athletic director/assistant football coach), Ken Cole (head athletic trainer) and Sonny Whittington (assistant football coach/director of admissions). 
 
Allard Baird (Modern Era Athlete – Baseball)
 
Allard Baird, currently vice president, player personnel for major league baseball's Boston Red Sox, came to Southern Arkansas from St. Petersburg, Florida, in the summer of 1984, transferring to play his sophomore season in 1985 for the Mulerider baseball team.  He played second base and shortstop, hitting .311 and being named honorable mention All-AIC (Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference).
 
Baird gave up his eligibility the following season to serve as a student assistant to legendary Head Coach Steve Goodheart in order to start laying the foundation for his future baseball career.  At the time, Goodheart didn't like the idea, but Baird persisted and Goodheart relented and placed him in charge of working with the pitchers.
 
In the 1986 season, the Muleriders were AIC champions with a 16-4 record and finished the year with an overall mark of 36-12 and were ranked as high as eighth in the national poll during the season.  Following the season, Baird became an associate scout for the Kansas City Royals under Kenny Gonzales, who had signed Bo Jackson.
 
He then was hired in 1987 as head coach at Broward Community College in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., staying only a year.  In 1988, Baird was hired full time by the Kansas City Royals, spending half his time scouting and the other half as a hitting coach with Class A Appleton, Wisconsin.  He moved up the ranks as a full-time scout for Kansas City and worked on the field with player development.  He was promoted in 1998 to vice-president of player development and scouting, before serving as assistant to the general manager in 1999 and 2000, and then was named in June of 2000 as general manager of the Royals, replacing Herk Robinson.
 
Baird was a member of the Baseball Olympic Selection Committee for the 2000 gold medal winning team.  In 2003, he was named major league baseball's Executive of the Year.
 
After his 18-year tenure with the Royals, the Red Sox hired Baird as a special assistant to the general manager in 2006.  He was later named vice president and director of professional scouting, before assuming his current position last year, serving under Red Sox GM Ben Cherington.
 
Baird is most proud of the Red Sox's 2007 World Series championship.  He has been credited in publications as “Most crucial and being a major key to the Red Sox's success over the past several seasons…As VP of player personnel he's the man largely in charge of finding players…He and his team of nine scouts saw to it that holes would be plugged with players who gave surprisingly significant contributions, and…Baird has the ability to turn rocks into diamonds in the rough.”
 
Baird grew up in Rochester, N.J., and currently keeps a residence in Florida with his wife, Julie, who came to SAU with him in 1984.  She holds a degree in accounting from the university and has her CPA license and is a shareholder with an accounting firm in Miami.
 
Fred Perry (Modern Era Athlete – Football)
 
Fred Perry was a consensus NCAA Division II first team All-American at Southern Arkansas in 1997, leading the Muleriders to their only Gulf South Conference football championship, and to the school's first NCAA playoff berth.  He became the first Mulerider to be named first team All-America since the school's affiliation with the NCAA in 1995.
 
Perry was a speedy 6-3, 215-pound linebacker from Fort Smith (Northside) via Northeastern Oklahoma Junior College, playing his final two seasons at SAU in 1996 and 1997.
 
He was named first team on four different All-America teams, an All-South Region selection, first team all-conference and the GSC's defensive player of the year his senior season, after racking up 87 tackles with 19 for loss, including three sacks, forced four fumbles and recovered one, had two pass breakups, and returned 42 punts for 312 yards.
 
Perry was an honorable mention All-America selection and first team All-GSC pick in 1996, recording 105 tackles, 71 solo, with 11 for loss, including three sacks, forced three fumbles, and broke up five passes and had one interception, while returning 28 punts for 400 yards and one touchdown.
 
His SAU career numbers included 192 tackles, 103 solo, with 30 for 105 yards in loss, including six sacks for minus 45 yards.
 
Unusual as a linebacker, he excelled as a return specialist for punts, setting five school records and still holding three with 70 punt returns for 712 yards in a career, and 42 returns in a season.
 
After signing a free agent contract with the NFL's Baltimore Ravens, Perry went on to a 10-year professional career as a defensive end in the Canadian Football League.  He was with the Toronto Argonauts in 1999-2000 and the Edmonton Eskimos in 2001, before going back to the NFL and a contract with the Atlanta Falcons in 2002.  He returned to Canada the next year with the Ottawa Renegades, was with the Calgary Stampeders in 2004, and spent the next three seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, before returning to Edmonton in 2008, and then finishing his career with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2009.
 
Perry's three years in Saskatchewan were a highlight of his career, with the Roughriders winning the Grey Cup championship in 2006 and Perry posting 47 tackles with 14 sacks for 115 yards in losses, 10 pass breakups and one interception.  In 2007 he recorded 70 tackles with eight sacks, seven pass breakups and three fumble recoveries.  He was a CFL All-Star and West All-Star both those seasons.
 
Perry's career numbers in the CFL included 361 tackles, 61 sacks, eight fumble recoveries and 29 pass breakups.
 
Perry currently resides in Saskatchewan where he is employed with a construction company.  He has a daughter, Ja Kayla, and a son, Mikivion.
 
Jerry Camp (Golden Era Athlete – Football)
 
Jerry Camp played football at what was then Southern State College (Southern Arkansas) from 1957-1960.
 
In his senior season of 1960 he was an honorable mention selection on the Little All-America team, at a time when there were few postseason honors available as today, and was named first team All-AIC as both a center and linebacker.  He was also selected All-AIC as a center on the 1959 team.
 
A walk-on at SAU, Camp earned a scholarship in his first few weeks, much needed as one of eight children in his family.  He started his final three years, with the 1959 and 1960 teams going a combined 11-7 under Head Coach Auburn Smith against a schedule that included Arkansas State, Louisiana-Monroe, Stephen F. Austin State, Louisiana-Lafayette, McNeese State and Central Arkansas, all Division I schools today.
 
Camp graduated from Haynesville (La.) High School in 1957, playing football for four years, and as a senior, the Golden Tornado lost only one game to Louisiana powerhouse Monroe-Neville.  Haynesville defeated Minden that year, which won the state championship of the second highest classification in Louisiana at the time.
 
Out of high school, he was offered a scholarship by then Northeast Louisiana (Louisiana-Monroe) to red-shirt, and was also approached later by Louisiana Tech.
 
Football ran deep in the Camp family, with Jerry's older brother, Ivan, starting for four years at LSU as a center and linebacker, and his younger brother, Kenneth, was a two-year starter at cornerback and wide receiver for the Muleriders.
 
After earning his degree from Southern Arkansas, Camp coached for two years in Camden, three years in Magnolia and five years at Springhill, La.  He moved into education administration at Springhill in 1971, working his way from assistant principal to principal.  In 1989 he moved across the state line to become principal at Taylor and was named superintendant in 1991, before retiring from Taylor in 1999.
 
Camp now spends most of his time devoted to church work and on eight local golf courses.
 
He and his wife, the former Sally Allen of Haynesville, and a former SAU cheerleader, now live in Bella Vista.  They have two daughters, Dorothy, married to former Mulerider baseball pitcher Robert Upperman (SAU, 1980), and both work for Wal Mart in Bentonville, and younger daughter Suzanne, who played tennis at SAU, and is an administrator in the Bentonville School District, and married to Nick Nicholas.  The Camp's have two grandchildren.
 
 
Bruce Hamlin (Golden Era Athlete – Track & Field)
 
Bruce Hamlin was an outstanding track and field performer at Southern Arkansas from 1968-1971, earning NAIA All-America honors and was a four-time All-AIC sprinter.
 
He was a member of two Mulerider AIC championship teams, 1968 and 1970, ran on numerous AIC champion relay teams, and was the 100-yard dash champion in both 1970 and 1971.  The Muleriders won the mile relay all four years of Hamlin's career at the AIC championship.
 
As a freshman in 1968, Hamlin was a member of the 440-yard relay team that posted a time of 41.0, and the mile relay team that ran 3:14.7, both AIC records.
 
In his sophomore season, the 880-yard relay team clocked a time of 1:24.9, a school record that stands to this day.
 
Hamlin and his teammates continued breaking records in 1970, as he anchored the mile relay that ran 3:13.7 for a new AIC record, and the 440-yard relay team that matched the 1968 team's time of 41.0 to tie the conference mark.  Hamlin also ran a then school record 21.2 in the 220-yard dash at the NAIA national meet.
 
In his senior season of 1971, Hamlin was a member of the AIC champion mile relay team that set a new AIC and school record with a time of 3:11.5, and he was the 100-yard dash champion in 9.7.
 
His personal best times over his career were 9.5 in the 100-yard dash, 21.17 in the 220, and 6.1 in the 60-yard dash, the third fastest time in the country listed by Track & Field News, in January 1971.
 
Hamlin was inducted into the Arkansas Track & Field Hall of Fame this past June as a member of the 2012 class.
 
After receiving his degree, Hamlin spent five years teaching and coaching in Vero Beach, Fla.  He returned to Arkansas in 1977 and began work at Mills University Studies High School in Little Rock, where he is currently Chair of the Department of Mathematics.
 
He and his wife, Nell, have two children, a daughter, Megann, and son, Alex.
 
Janet Cooper Wood (Golden Era Athlete – Basketball & Volleyball)
 
Janet Cooper Wood came to Southern Arkansas from her hometown of Melbourne in Izard County, playing basketball for the then Riderettes from 1974-1978 and volleyball for her first three years.
 
At Melbourne, her Lady Bearkatz basketball team won the state and overall championship in 1973.  She was an All-State selection for three years and played in the 1974 All-Star game in Conway.
 
Immediately following her all-star performance, Wood met Riderette Coach Dr. Margaret Downing for the first time, who encouraged her to visit the SAU campus and program.  She committed on that visit, with a bonus at the time being that Monroe Ingram, who was also from Izard County (Calico Rock), was on the men's basketball staff.  Known as “Coop” to her Riderette teammates, Ingram labeled her as the “Izard County Flash.”
 
Wood was a four-year starter for the Riderette basketball team, earning All-Arkansas Women's Intercollegiate Sports Association (AWISA) honors for three seasons and playing on squads that won AWISA championships her first three years.
 
The Riderettes were a combined 71-20 over her four years, advancing to the region tournament each season, finishing third in both her sophomore season of 1975-76 when the team went 20-4, and her junior year of 1976-77 that finished 20-3.
 
Wood is a three-time member of the 300-Point Club, averaging 16.5 points per game in scoring 395 points her sophomore year (1975-76), 16.1 points per game with 371 points her junior season (1976-77), and 15.1 points per game with 317 her senior year (1977-78).  She currently ranks sixth on the all-time SAU career scoring list with 1,369 points in 91 games, averaging 15.0 points per game over her four years.
 
She led the team in both scoring and assists her final two seasons, and still holds the school record with 156 assists in the 1975-76 season.
 
A versatile athlete, “Coop” was also a three-year starter in volleyball, playing on two AWISA championship teams and being named to the All-AWISA team.
 
After receiving her B.S.E. in physical education in 1978, Wood spent the next year as a graduate assistant for Dr. Downing, acquiring her M.Ed. in physical education in 1979.  Wood credited the five years spent with Dr. Downing as very instrumental in her future coaching success.
 
Wood returned to north Arkansas where she coached at Mountain Home High School, guiding her basketball teams to eight final fours, five state runner-up finishes, and one state championship.  During her tenure, her teams compiled an overall record of 516-112 for a glittering .822 winning percentage.  She was named the Arkansas High School Coaches Association (AHSCA) outstanding coach in girl's basketball twice, received the AHSCA's outstanding coach in girl's athletics, and coached in three All-Star games.  She also coached volleyball, track, softball and golf at Mountain Home, and in 2009 was inducted into the AHSCA Hall of Fame.
 
Wood retired from coaching in 1999 and moved to administration, assuming her current position of athletic director in 2004, and holds the distinction of being the only full-time female athletic director in the state.  She has been at Mountain Home for 31 years.
 
Janet is married to Lou Wood, and they have three children and four grandchildren, with another grandchild expected next month.  Their daughter, Mandi Booe, and husband, Jamie, live in Little Rock; son, Travis, and wife, Kaitlin, reside in Tulsa; and daughter, Laci Lyons, and husband, Derrick, live in Evansville, Ind.
 
Dan Gregory (Meritorious Service)
 
Dan Gregory, the “Voice of the Muleriders, was born the third of seven children in 1954 in Troy, Mo., and was raised near Flint Hill.  He graduated from St. Dominic High School in O'Fallon, Mo., in 1973, and attended East Central University in Union, Mo., studying law enforcement for two years, before graduating from Broadcast Center in St. Louis in 1978.
 
Gregory moved to Magnolia later that year and was hired by Magnolia Broadcasting Company to work at KVMA-AM & FM, now Noalmark Broadcasting Corporation's KVMA-AM/KVMZ-FM.
 
He works the morning drive-time shift on-air, plus sales and sports.  Gregory began his play-by play career broadcasting Boys Club baseball games, and has done radio broadcasts of approximately 2,300 athletic events over his career.
 
Gregory has been the “Voice of the Muleriders” for 31 years, beginning in 1982.  He started as the play-by-play announcer for Mulerider basketball games with the 1982-83 season, has done Mulerider baseball games since 1991 and will be in his 22nd year, is in his 16th year of football after adding it in 1997, and will begin his eighth year of Lady Mulerider basketball after starting broadcasts of it in 2005-06.  He also has been the voice of Magnolia High School basketball and football games for over 30 years.
 
Gregory is active in church ministries and attends Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Magnolia and has been on the Parish Pastoral Council for over 20 years.  He is also an active member of the Knights of Columbus.
 
Gregory also maintains an active role in the community as a member of the Magnolia Rotary Club; is a long-time board member of the Columbia County Rural Development Authority for management of Lake Columbia, where he currently serves as chairman of the board; is a former coach at the Boys and Girls Club of Magnolia; serves as co-emcee of the annual Boys and Girls Club TV auction; and has served as the emcee of the annual Columbia County Fair queen contest for many years.
 
Jay Adcox (Outstanding Service – Posthumously)
 
The late Jay Adcox served 13 years as director of athletics at Southern Arkansas.  He passed away in late July 2011. 
 
Adcox arrived at Southern Arkansas in 1986 and served as assistant football coach for eight years before turning to teaching full-time following the 1993 season.  He became chair of the Department of Health, Kinesiology and Recreation in 1997 before assuming the dual role as Director of Athletics from 1998-2001.
 
During his eight-year coaching stint with the Muleriders, Adcox served as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for former head coaches Rob Hicklin and Don Tumey.  He then turned to full-time teaching duties while pursuing a Ph.D. in human performance and health sciences from Southern Mississippi.  From 1995-1996 Adcox was SAU's NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative.  He held the title of Assistant Athletic Director in 1997-98, mentoring under long-time Athletic Director W.T. Watson, before succeeding him the next year.
 
Adcox served in his late years on the NCAA Division II football championship committee.  For years, he enjoyed and was recognized as the “color” voice opposite his good friend Dan Gregory's play-by-play for Mulerider football and baseball games for KVMA/KVMZ radio.  Adcox continued his role as Director of Athletics until his death, working in his office up until days before he passed.
 
As a boy, Adcox's family relocated from Washington to Knob Noster, Mo., in 1966, which began a long-standing relationship with the “Show-Me” state.  After graduating high school in 1969, Adcox played football for the Missouri Tigers as a freshman before transferring to Missouri Western State, receiving his B.S.E. in physical education in 1975, and then his M.Ed. in the same discipline from Northwest Missouri State in 1976.
 
Adcox began his coaching career at Missouri Western State, serving as a graduate assistant, defensive coordinator and assistant head football coach from 1975-1980, and also head track coach in 1976-77.  From there he served two years (1981-1982) as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at Morehead State (Ky.), before accepting the head football coaching position at Peru State (Neb.), compiling a three-year 16-13 record from 1983-1985.
 
During his administrative tenure at Southern Arkansas, Adcox was a guiding force behind the renovation and upgrading of athletic facilities.  He was instrumental in the planning and moving into the Kathryn Brown HKR Complex, the remodeling and renovation of football facilities at Wilkins Stadium, and oversaw the recently completed baseball and softball facilities and athletic weight room.
 
Adcox was a member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, NCAA Division II Athletic Directors Association, American Football Coaches Association, American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance and was a member of the Magnolia Rotary Club.  He received numerous accolades and awards over his career, with the most recent having been by the Knob Noster High School athletic recognition committee as a distinguished alumni.  Adcox received SAU's Faculty Excellence Award in 1998, was a Missouri Western State silver anniversary honoree in 2000, and was twice inducted to the Missouri Western Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005 and 2010 as a coach on the 1975 and 1977 football teams.
 
Adcox spent 36 years teaching and coaching his passion for football and education to literally hundreds of students, and touched the lives of his colleagues and those he came in contact with.  A beloved figure on the Southern Arkansas campus, his influence was felt by many.
 
Adcox was married to his wife, Bonnie, for 38 years, and they have two children, a son, Joseph, and his wife, Katherine, and a daughter, Sarah.
 
Ken Cole (Outstanding Service)
 
Ken Cole has served as a head athletic trainer for 30 years and is in his 24th year at Southern Arkansas, where he has built one of the top athletic training programs in the country.
 
During his tenure, the program has evolved from an internship for students to a four-year, B.S. degree in athletic training.  His former students have gone on to full-time positions with Major League Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians, Anaheim Angels and Chicago Cubs, the Harlem Globetrotters, the former World League of American Football and current NFL Europe's Barcelona Dragons, and numerous rehabilitation clinics, universities, colleges and high schools; and have served as interns for MLB's Atlanta Braves, Pirates, Angels and Cubs, and the National Football League's Detroit Lions and former Houston Oilers.
 
Cole came to SAU in January of 1989 after serving over six years as head athletic trainer and biology instructor at Bartlesville (Okla.) High School.  He began his athletic training career as a freshman in high school working with the football and basketball teams.  From that point, he served two years as a student athletic trainer for Coffeyville (Kan.) Community College, before moving to Central Missouri where he was both a student and graduate assistant athletic trainer while earning his B.S.E. (1981) in physical education/biology and M.S. (1982) in athletic training.
 
Cole is a former examiner for the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA) board of certification national exam, is a current member of the Southwest Athletic Trainer's Association (SWATA) executive board, and served on the SWATA college and university athletic trainers committee from 1996-2002 and the SWATA Honors and Awards committee from 2003-2009.
 
Active in the Arkansas Athletic Trainers Association (AATA) since 1989, Cole was a member of its scholarship committee from 1992 until this past year, serving as its chair the last 10 years.  He was president of the association in 1993 and 1994, and has been a member of the honors and awards committee since 1995.
 
While in the Gulf South Conference, Cole represented SAU on the Athletic Trainers Committee and served as the chair from 2007-2010.  In the new Great American Conference, he was elected by his peers to serve in the same position.
 
At Southern Arkansas, Cole is responsible for the coverage and care of approximately 300 student-athletes across 11 sports.
 
In 2005 Cole was inducted into the AATA hall of fame, and now serves on that committee.  As a member of the NATA, he received the 25-year service award in 2003.  During the past 38 years, Cole has a phenomenal streak of having worked 567 consecutive football games as an athletic trainer.
 
In April of 2011, Cole was appointed by Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe to the Arkansas State Board of Athletic Training which oversees and governs the licensure of state athletic trainers.
 
In June of 2011, Cole received the prestigious honor of being named the NCAA Division II national athletic trainer of the year by the NATA's College/University Athletic Trainers' Committee, presented to him at their national convention in New Orleans, La.
 
Ken and his wife, Kathy, who is the director of on-line learning at the university, have been married 34 years and have two children and one grandchild, a daughter, Megan Jackson, and her husband, Jason, and a son, Andrew.
 
James (Sonny) Whittington (Outstanding Service)
 
James "Sonny" Whittington first came to Southern Arkansas as a freshman from Rison in the fall of 1957 when the school was Southern State College.  He arrived with a half-scholarship to play football for Coach Auburn Smith, who would have a tremendous impact on his life.  Before the year was out, Whittington worked hard enough to earn a full scholarship.  He finished his Mulerider career as an All-Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference (AIC) cornerback in 1960.
 
As a sophomore, he was the starting quarterback for the football team.  When Mulerider All-America quarterback Calvin Neal returned from military service, Whittington was shifted to play other positions, including tight end.  He finished his football career at defensive back and being named All-AIC in 1960.
 
Whittington attended the university when the bond between athletes and other students was strong, facilitated by the small size of the student body where everyone knew everyone else on campus and when professors knew students by name and often knew the students' family, too.  Years later, Whittington said that the greatest compliment he ever received as Director of Admissions at SAU occurred when someone said he reminded them of Milton Talley, the beloved dean of students at the university, noted for his personal interest in every student he met.
 
Whittington received his B.S.E. from the university in 1961, and later, his M.S.E. from Henderson State in 1969.  He was hired by Fordyce High School in 1961 as football coach and history teacher.  After six years there, he became head football coach at Pine Bluff High School and enjoyed great success.
 
In December 1968, Coach Raymond "Rip" Powell asked him to join the Muleriders as an assistant coach.  Whittington served during one of the programs greatest eras of winning football, as the teams compiled a record of 62-38-2 for a .618 winning percentage over a period of 10 seasons from 1969 through 1978.  The staff included Powell, Whittington and Neal for the duration.  Bobby “Cotton” Staten was there for the first three years, Jim Canter for two years after Staten, and then Eldon Hawley finished with the staff.
 
While coaching, Whittington also served as assistant professor in the Department of Physical Education.
 
Whittington left coaching in the spring of 1979 and was named director of admissions and recruiting at SAU.  He served in this position for 23 years, retiring in 2001. He attributed his success in recruiting to lessons he had learned from Powell, particularly an approach that treated each student as unique and special, meriting the “personal” touch which became the hallmark of Whittington's successful career after football.
 
Whittington developed the first true marketing plan in the Office of Admissions for SAU, and his office grew over time from himself and a part-time secretary to a fully-staffed office of three full-time recruiters and support personnel.
 
He always paid close attention with personal visits to all schools in SAU's prime recruiting territory in a 150-mile radius from Magnolia, going out of his way to make friends with each school's superintendent, principal and counselor.  He also developed programs designed to appeal to the different types of students and parents found in these locales.
 
Often, he engaged in recruiting students one-on-one by finding how SAU might meet the needs of particular students, and if he found a student that wanted or needed a program not found at SAU, he would help put the student in touch with a recruiter from another school.  His personal and caring approach found much success.  Over the twenty-three years in which he directed recruiting, the student body increased an average of 60 students per year, growing from 1,739 in 1979 to 3,127 in 2001 when Whittington retired.  Like so many alumni and retired faculty and staff at SAU, Whittington in retirement continued to work and promote in other ways the university that he loved.
 
Sonny has been married to his wife, Sherry, for 26 years.  His son, Mike, is a former Mulerider tennis player, and they have a daughter, Whitney.