President Obama awards Pat Summitt the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Tennessee Head Women's Basketball Coach Emeritus Pat Summitt has received yet another honor, earning her newest recognition Thursday night at the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremony.
For more than three decades, the GKSHOF Dinner and Induction Ceremony has celebrated excellence in athletics while benefiting the life-changing work of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley (BGCTNV). Summitt, the winningest coach in NCAA basketball history during her 38 seasons as head coach of the Lady Vols, has a legacy of excellence in working with young people and a reputation for her work in the community.
Those are just two reasons why she was named the inaugural recipient of the Ignite Greatness Award. The award will be known from now on as the Pat Summitt Ignite Greatness Award.
The award's presenters explained, "to ignite greatness is to believe that every person has limitless potential that we must discover, ignite and foster. No one better exemplifies this idea than Pat Summitt. We appreciate Coach Summitt's support of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley's efforts to ignite greatness. She sees the potential within our community's youth, from the Boys & Girls Clubs to the basketball courts. She is the spark that will ignite greatness in generations to come."
The Sports Hall of Fame is made possible each year by the generous sponsors who support the youth programs of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley. This year's featured speaker was Phil Niekro, a Major League Hall of Fame Pitcher and five-time Gold Glove Award recipient.
In addition to Summitt receiving her award, Tennessee diving coach Dave Parrington and former UT football players Todd Kelly, Terry McDaniel and Charlie Severance were inducted into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame.
MORE ON THE HALL OF FAME INDUCTIONS
Tennessee diving coach Dave Parrington and three former UT football players were inducted into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame at a ceremony Thursday at the Knoxville Convention Center.
Parrington joined former Vol gridiron greats Todd Kelly, Terry McDaniel and Charlie Severance as four of the 10 local sports contributors enshrined.
Now entering his 23rd season at Tennessee, Parrington has coached six NCAA individual champions along with one world champion. His divers have accumulated 80 All-America honors, and he has been voted SEC Diving Coach of the Year a combined 10 times between themen's and women's programs.
The 2011-12 season was a banner year for Tennessee diving in terms of all-around performance, particularly at the SEC Championships. Parrington was the SEC Diving Coach of the Year as his squad won four of the six events, including a program-firstsweep of the three men's competitions.
Tori Lamp won platform and finished runner-up on both the 1- and 3-meter boards and was named the SEC Women's Diver of the Year. Ryan Helms swept the 1-meter and 3-meter springboard titles to earn SEC Men's Diver of the Year honors, while Mauricio Robles was victorious in the men's platform competition and was voted the SEC FreshmanDiver of the Year.
Parrington also has a wealth of international experience as both a diver and coach, representing Zimbabwe in the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow on the 3-meter and platform competition, while coaching in the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games in Atlanta and Sydney, Australia. He has also served as a coach at the World Cup, World Championships, Commonwealth Games and the Pan Am Games.
TODD KELLY
Kelly was a star defensive end with the Vols in the early 1990s. He was a 1992 All-SEC First-Team selection and served as team captain for that squad which went 9-3. Kelly was selected in the first round (27th overall) by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1993 NFL Draft and went on to play with the Niners, Cincinnati Bengals and Atlanta Falcons from 1993-96. In his 46 NFL games, Kelly had 5.5 career sacks and was a part of the Super Bowl XIX title with San Francisco.
TERRY McDANIEL
McDaniel was a 1987 All-SEC first-team defensive back with the Vols and went on to be a first-round NFLDraft pick by the Raiders in 1988. McDaniel played 11 seasons in the NFL with the L.A./Oakland Raiders (1988-97) and the Seattle Seahawks (1998). He was a five-time Pro Bowl selection (1992-96) and four-time All-Pro pick (1992-95). In 152 career NFL games, McDaniel had 35 interceptions.
CHARLIE SEVERANCE
Severance lettered with the Vols in 1959-60. He earned national acclaim for stopping a two-point conversion as the Vols upset No. 1 LSU in 1959. His part in "The Stop" led to a 14-13 Vol win. Severance, Bill Majors, and Wayne Grubb made the play that kept the Vols in the lead early in the fourth quarter, stopping Tiger Billy Cannon. The play is generally considered at the top of defensive plays in the entirety of Tennessee history.
Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame
2012 Inductees
Glenn McDish, Radio
Charles "Bud" Lobetti, Track and field
Bob Black, Football coach and athletic director
Mimsy Fleming, Golf
Charlie Severance, Football
Terry McDaniel, Football
Rick Byrd, Basketball coach
Todd Kelly, Football
Dave Parrington, Diving
Rocky Goode, Football official
University of Tennessee