Athletes Honored at Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame

Other’s honored include Arkansas football greats Quinn Grovey, Dick Bumpas, Bill ‘Sleepy’ Curtis, and Ben Cowins. Also to be honored are Calvin Borel (Thoroughbred Racing), Eternal Grand Master Haeng Ung Lee in Taekwondo, Forrest Wood in Outdoorsman, Jerry Carlton in Basketball, and in coaching, Cliff Horton and Carolyn Moffatt.

Here are a few details of each, care of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame website:

The Class of 2011 consists of:

Regular Category

1. Ben Cowins – Considered one of the best Razorback running backs of all time, Cowins was one of just 10 Arkansas players to earn All-Southwest Conference honors three times (1976-78). Though many of his school records were later broken by Darren McFadden, Cowins left Arkansas with what at the time was the school rushing record of 3,570 yards. He had 16 100-yard rushing games.
   
   The St. Louis native led the Southwest Conference with a 6.3-yard rushing average in 1976. He led his team in rushing in 1976 (1,162), 1977 (1,192) and 1978 (1,006). Cowins had 30 career rushing touchdowns and scored 180 points. Cowins, a team captain in 1978, was named to the UA’s All-Decade team for the 1970s. He played in the 1979 Hula Bowl and later played for the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs along with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League.
    
2. Bill Curtis – The Marianna native known as “Sleepy”  was among the top college running backs in Arkansas in the 1960s. He was an All-Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference selection three times while playing at Arkansas Tech University and was named to the Arkansas Democrat’s All-Decade team for the 1960s. He twice led the AIC in rushing and gained more than 1,000 yards his senior season. In high school, Curtis lettered in five sports. Legendary Coach Red Parker, who was at Arkansas A&M (now the University of Arkansas at Monticello) at the time, once said of Curtis after a game against the Wonder Boys: “That little guy is great. I certainly won’t miss him next season.”
    
3. Quinn Grovey – As one of the most productive quarterbacks in University of Arkansas history, Grovey led the Razorbacks to back-to-back Southwest Conference titles in 1988 and 1989. Grovey, a native of Duncan, Okla., lettered four years while passing for 4,496 yards and rushing for 1,746 yards. He earned All-SWC honors in 1988 when he led the conference in passing accuracy at .633. He passed for 966 yards and four touchdowns that season while rushing for 515 yards and seven touchdowns.
   
   In 1989, Grovey accounted for five touchdowns in a memorable 45-39 victory over a University of Houston team led by Heisman Trophy winner Andre Ware. Grovey was named to the school’s All-Century team and was inducted into the University of Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor in 2001. Arkansas recruited Grovey after he had led his high school teams to records of 12-2, 14-0 and 9-4 with two state championships along the way. Grovey is now part of the radio broadcast team for Razorback football games.
    
4. Cliff Lee – Clifton Phifer “Cliff” Lee is a Major League Baseball left-handed starting pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. Lee has also played for the Cleveland Indians, the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers.His American Legion coach was former major league relief pitcher Wes Gardner, who helped develop him at an early age. In the 2000 amateur draft, Lee was chosen in the fourth round by the Montreal Expos. He signed in July of that year. He played for the Class A Jupiter, Fla., team in 2001.
   
   In June 2002, the Expos traded Lee to the Cleveland Indians. He was called up to the major league club in September of that year and had his big league debut on Sept. 15, 2002. Lee won at least 14 games in each of his first three full seasons. Following the 2008 season, Lee was a near unanimous choice for the American League Cy Young Award as he went 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA for the Indians. On July 29, 2009, just before the trading deadline, the Indians traded Lee to the Philadelphia Phillies. Lee posted a 2-0 record in the first two rounds of the playoffs and then pitched a complete game in the first game of the 2009 World Series as the Phillies beat the New York Yankees.
   
   He was the first pitcher since Deacon Phillippe in Game 1 of the 1903 World Series to pitch a complete World Series game with 10 or more strikeouts and no walks. Lee earned another victory as the Phillies won Game 5. The Yankees, however, went on to win the World Series. Lee was traded to the Seattle Mariners in December and traded again to the Texas Rangers on July 9.  He is now back with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Senior Category

1. Eternal Grand Master Haeng Ung Lee – The founder, president and first grand master of the American Taekwondo Association was a pioneer in the field of martial arts. Lee was born in China after his family had left Korea. The family returned to Korea following World War II. Lee taught taekwondo to members of the South Korean military and later opened a school near a U.S. Air Force base.
   
   An American serviceman named Richard Reed became a friend and in 1962 sponsored Lee’s move to the United States. Lee co-founded the American Taekwondo Association in Omaha, Neb., in 1969 and moved the organization’s headquarters to Little Rock in 1977. Lee was an ambassador for Arkansas for almost three decades, and the ATA championships remain the largest annual convention in Little Rock. Lee died of cancer in October 2000.
    
2. Carolyn Moffatt – The Crossett native built a national women’s basketball powerhouse at Ouachita Baptist University, where she coached from 1965-84. She became the first female coach inducted into the NAIA Basketball Hall of Fame. She posted a record of 213-162 at Ouachita while taking her teams to tournaments across the country. She also held numerous national positions with the AAU through the years and served as a women’s basketball adviser to the U.S. Olympic Committee.