At this year’s Track & Field Coaches Clinic of Texas (January 10-11, 2014), the 5th Annual TTFCA Hall of Fame class will be inducted. The new 7-member class includes:
Chester Bradley
A graduate of Dallas Highland Park and the University of Texas, Chester Bradley has been involved in track & field for most of his life. Privileged to have run for Clyde Littlefield at UT, Bradley has returned to his alma mater as a Texas Relays official for the past 57 years and has also worked the UIL State Championships for the past 20.
His track and field officiating resume includes: the 1984 and 1996 Olympic Games, the 1993 World University Games, the 1992 Goodwill Games, the 1974 USA vs. USSR Junior Meet, the 1980 USA vs. USSR Indoor Meet, 11 NCAA D-I Outdoor Championships, 4 NCAA D-II Outdoor Championships, 5 NCAA D-I & D-II Indoor Championships, 4 NAIA Outdoor Championships, 10 USATF Outdoor and 6 USATF Indoor Championships, 6 US Olympic Trials, 7 USATF Junior National Outdoor Championships, and a variety of high school, college and all-comers meets around the state.
Bradley, serves as a member of the National Officials Committee of USA Track & Field, and in 2007, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Track & Field Officials USATF Hall of Fame.
Leroy Burrell
In the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, Burrell, Carl Lewis, Mike Marsh, and Dennis Mitchell set a world record in the 4×1 with a gold-winning time of 37.40. While at the University of Houston, Burrell broke the freshman long jump record held by Lewis when he “leaped 26’ 9” at a dual meet against UCLA in 1986.” In 1989, he “won the NCAA Indoor Long Jump Championships with a leap of 26’ 5.50” and set the “NCAA outdoor meet record with a personal best jump of 27’ 5.50.” At the USA Outdoor Championships, he won the 100 in 9.94, then the fastest time ever by a collegian.
In 1990, Burrell received the Jumbo Elliott Award as the nation’s top collegiate track and field athlete after winning the 100 at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, the long jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships and the 100/200 at the SWC Outdoor Championships. In 1990 and 1991, he was ranked as the world’s top sprinter – he won 19 of 22 100-meter races.
Entering his 15th year at the helm of the University of Houston track & field program, Burrell has been named the Conference USA Coach of the Year “a combined 16 times after guiding his men’s team to 10-C USA indoor and outdoor championships and the women’s team to nine titles.”
Jon Drummond
Dubbed the Clown Prince of Track & Field, Drummond guided the 2012 US Olympic Relays teams to spectacular success. The men’s 4×100 relay team equaled the existing world while the women’s team won and crushed the world record, knocking more than a half a second off the record that had stood for more than a quarter of a century.
An Olympic Gold (Sydney, 2000) and Silver Medalist (Atlanta, 1996) and 3-time World Champion, Drummond is now the head coach at Arlington Grace Prep Academy as well as the founder of “Speed Technique Agility Reaction Training, LLC (START), and since its inception in 2004, Jon has successfully reared athletes to high school state championship titles, elite athletes to World Championship titles and US Olympic teams in track and field, football prospects to NFL teams, and members of the US Olympic Speed Skating Team as they prepared for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.”
Carlette Guidry
One of the all-time great athletes in University of Texas sports history, Guidry-White, a Houston native, earned All-America honors 23 times during her collegiate career from 1987 through 1991. She was a 12-time NCAA Champion and a 17-time Southwest Conference Champion in sprints and relays for the Longhorns. As a senior, she earned the Honda Award as National Track & Field Athlete of the Year and received the Babe Zaharias Award as the nation’s top female athlete. She was named the Southwest Conference’s Female Track Athlete of the 1980’s. She was also honored among the Indoor Track and Field Most Outstanding Student-Athletes in Honor Of the 25th Anniversary of NCAA Women’s Championships.
Guidry participated in both the 1992 (Barcelona) and 1996 (Atlanta) Summer Olympics, winning gold medals as a member of the US 400-meter relay team. In 2000, she was inducted into the Inaugural Class of the prestigious UT Women’s Athletic Hall of Honor, and in 2011, she was recognized at Texas Relays.
Fred Newhouse
A graduate of Gaililee High School in Hallsville and current resident of Houston, Newhouse was a three-time All-American and NAIA Champion at Prairie View A&M University.
In the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Newhouse captured silver and gold medals – 44.40 in the 400 and as part of the 4×400 respectively. In 2000, Newhouse was appointed Team Leader for the United States Men’s Track & Field team that competed in the Sydney Olympic Games. In addition to his work as Director of Public Affairs for Valero Energy’s regional refining operations, Newhouse also helped to found the Northwest Flyers Track Club in Houston.
Newhouse has served on the Board of Directors for the United States Olympic Committee and USATF. For the past 11 years, he has also added referee to his resume, working NCAA D-I Indoor and Outdoor Championships, USATF Outdoor Championships, Texas Relays, and the UIL State Championships.
Sammy Walker
According to the Sammy Walker’s BBQ homepage, “A born Texan, Sammy Walker lives large in everything he does. His athletic feats include a history as an Olympian and title as one of the strongest men in the world in the 1970’s. An All-American athlete during his tenure at Southern Methodist University, Sammy was also a record-holding shot-putter in high school. His professional life as an athlete over the course of a decade was derailed when the Olympics were boycotted in 1980.”
Walker’s achievements include:
• 1966-68 High School Shot Put Titles
• Set National and World High School Shot Put Record at 72-03.25 in 1968
• Broke High School Shot Put Record at Golden West at 61-01.50 in 1968 with a 16lb shot
• 1968 – First High School Athlete depicted on the cover of Track & Field News
• 1976 – 9th in Olympic Weightlifting at Montreal Olympics
• 1977 – National Champion in Weightlifting
• 1976-79 – Ranked in the Top 10 in the World in both Shot and Weightlifting
• 1980 – Fourth and final Olympic Trials, 3rd as a shotputter
• 2002 – Coaching T.A.A.F Summer Track
http://sammywalkersbbq.com/about.html
Randy Yarbrough
Randy Yarbrough, who along with his identical twin brother Rick, attended the University of Texas on track scholarships from 1969-1973, lettering in 1971, 72 and 73. Both ran on the 4×1 school record-setting relay team at the 1973 Kansas Relays.
A graduate of the McCombs School of Business in 1973, Yarbrough started his own consulting business in 2002 and remains active in problem solving and assisting clients in the regulatory environment of the alcoholic beverage industry.
Yarbrough joined the University of Texas Track & Field Officials Association on the advice of his college coach Cleburne Price, who told Randy to pay back to the sport which had helped him obtain his degree. Randy has done so: he served as the President of the Association from 1993 to 1996, and he became the Director of Officials in 2004 with the retirement of Ben Lewis.
For more information, visit http://www.ttfca.com
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