Two stars on 1988 Southland Conference champion Northwestern State football team, current Demons head coach Scott Stoker and longtime NFL defensive back Randy Hilliard, were among the honorees for the university's 2008 Graduate N Club Hall of Fame ceremonies on Homecoming morning on Oct. 25.
Ceremonies, were held in the Magale Recital Hall at the morning of Homecoming day, Oct. 25. The group was also recognized on the field at Turpin Stadium before kickoff as the Demons football team plays host to Sam Houston State.
Stoker and Hilliard will join five-time track and field All-American Mike Brown and volleyball star Robyn Justin among 13 people enshrined in the Hall of Fame, the highest honor Northwestern presents its former student-athletes. The N Club will also present special recognition to Loneta Graves and Thomas Foster during the ceremonies.
Stoker broke the Demons' single-season and career passing records as a quarterback from 1986-89, while Hillard earned All-Southland Conference honors as a ball-hawking cornerback before a nine-year NFL career with Cleveland and Denver, winning a Super Bowl with the Broncos. As juniors, they helped lead Northwestern to its first Southland Conference championship and a national playoff quarterfinal appearance in a record-breaking 10-3 season in 1988.
Justin, who led the NCAA in service aces in 1986, will become the first Lady Demon volleyball competitor enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Brown won five All-America honors from 1972-76 in the long jump and as a relay sprinter.
Also honored with the inaugural "Dream Team" award will be the members of the Demons' 1955-58 mile relay team in track and field. During those seasons under legendary coach Walter Ledet, Northwestern won all but one race among around three dozen it participated in, including sweeping the Gulf States Conference championships all four years.
There were a total of nine athletes who ran on the mile relay team during those four years: Jack Bice, Don Dean, Charlie Hennigan, Don Hill, Sylvester Jimes, Jack Rogers, J.P. Self, Harold Gene Smith and Murrell "Sister" Walker. The University of Houston was the only team during that four-year stretch to outrun the Demons' quartet in what remains often the signature event of any track meet.
Graves, a retired NSU vice president, will be presented the Graduate N Club's Distinguished Service Award in recognition of her pivotal support of funding scholarships and operating funds that gave rise to intercollegiate women's sports at Northwestern in the mid-1970s. In April 1975, Northwestern became the first university in Louisiana to issue full athletic scholarships to women, when NSU athletes Pat Nolen, Diane Pittman, Emma Ellerman, Louise "Do" Bonin, Sherrill Landry, Terri McDonnell, Inez Brew, Mona Davidson, Janie Wallace and Margaret Langford were the recipients. Tammy Primeaux and Lisa Brewer were high school seniors who accepted scholarships to play basketball for the Lady Demons.
Another award will be presented to Foster, who has been in the athletics department for 25 years, working closely with the NSU football program. He will be presented honorary membership in the Graduate N Club, a gesture of respect that has been extended only a handful of times to those who were not athletic letterwinners for Northwestern.
This winter, the Graduate N Club will induct four of the school's greatest basketball stars into the Hall of Fame during Alumni Day events held Feb. 14 for women's basketball and March 7 for men's basketball.
For additional information, visit the www.nsudemons.com website or contact the NSU athletics department at 318-357-5251.
