Hall Pass Spotlight: Buck Baker NCSHOF MEMBER (Class of 1992) By HELEN ROSS Two things you probably didn’t know about Buck Baker, one of NASCAR’s greatest drivers. First, his given name was Elzie Wylie Baker Sr. and second, he started out driving a relatively sedate city bus in Charlotte, not a souped-up stock car. According to his son, Buddy, who was also an accomplished NASCAR driver, the nickname stuck because he was “wilder than a buck rabbit.” His father honed his skills behind the wheel like many drivers of his generation, running moonshine and outracing the law. Baker started [...]

Hall Pass Spotlight: Charlotte Smith NCSHOF MEMBER (Class of 2015) By HELEN ROSS The tweet Charlotte Smith posted recently couldn’t have been more apropos to the day. It read “2-23-23 = 2 people wore #23 at UNC. Do you know who they are?” Fans of North Carolina basketball almost certainly do. One was her idol, Michael Jordan, the basketball legend who hit the game-winner in the Tar Heels’ 1982 NCAA title game against Georgetown. As a young girl growing up in Shelby, N.C., Smith wanted to “be like Mike” even though her uncle is N.C. State’s great David Thompson [...]

Hall Pass Spotlight: Charlie Harville NCSHOF MEMBER (Class of 1997) By HELEN ROSS For generations of North Carolinians, Charlie Harville was “the” voice of sports, both on radio and television, where he always ended his broadcasts with his signature sign-off: “That’s the best in sports today.” But he was much more than a pioneering sports broadcaster. According to his 2002 obituary in the News & Record, the 83-year-old Harville was also a published poet, western movie fan, collector of pulp magazines, music afficionado, voracious reader and bird watcher – not to mention the father of nine, grandfather of 18 [...]

Hall Pass Spotlight: Chasity Melvin NCSHOF MEMBER (Class of 2017) By HELEN ROSS So what if the WNBA wouldn’t become a reality for nearly a decade? Chasity Melvin had big dreams, and the 11-year-old wasn’t going to let details get in the way. “Once I started playing, I used to tell my mother I was going to play pro,” Melvin recalled in a 2020 Fayetteville Observer article. “Mom told me, ‘They don’t have pros for women.’ “I said, ‘Don’t worry, they will.’” Sure enough, when Melvin graduated from N.C. State in 1999 there was not one but two pro [...]

Hall Pass Spotlight: Meadowlark Lemon NCSHOF MEMBER MEADOWLARK LEMON (Class of 1975) By HELEN ROSS Meadowlark Lemon was widely known as the “Clown Prince of Basketball. And as he barnstormed the world with the Harlem Globetrotters, performing for kings and queens and even popes, he picked up another nickname – the “Ambassador of Goodwill in Short Pants.” To the legendary Wilt Chamberlain, though, Lemon was simply this: “The most sensational, awesome, incredible basketball player I’ve ever seen. “People would say it would be Dr. J (Julius Erving) or even (Michael) Jordan. For me, it would be Meadowlark Lemon.” Chamberlain’s [...]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Rick Strunk, Associate Director—Communications [email protected] Trip Durham, Executive Director [email protected] January 24, 2023 THE NORTH CAROLINA SPORTS HALL OF FAME REVEALS CLASS OF 2023 Video Credit: Aaron Jackson, Caleb Leventhal, Richard Woodley Raleigh, NC—The North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame is honored to announce its 2023 induction class. The new members, listed alphabetically, include Rick Barnes, Jason Brown, Jeff Davis, Donald Evans, Tom Fazio, Ellen Griffin, Tom Higgins, Clarkston Hines, Robert “Stonewall” Jackson, Trudi Lacey, Ronald Rogers, John Sadri, Jerry Stackhouse, Curtis Strange and Rosie Thompson. Their planned induction will bring the [...]