Melvin Beavers
Football

 Anthony Brown
Football		 Kelton Busby
Men's Basketball		 Harry Denson
Coach		 Anita McChristian-Harrod
Women's Basketball
UAM Names Five To Sports Hall of Fame
August 13, 2007

MONTICELLO, AR — Three All-Americans, a women’s basketball pioneer and a legendary track and field coach comprise the class of 2007 of the University of Arkansas at Monticello Sports Hall of Fame.
            
High-scoring basketball forward Kelton Busby, All-American football center Anthony Brown, linebacker Melvin Beavers, who still holds the UAM career record for tackles, Anita McChristian Harrod, the school’s first women’s basketball star, and the late Harry Denson, who coached track and cross country at UAM for 23 years, will be inducted October 11.
            
Tommy Matthews, a former all-conference tennis player who has operated the scoreboard at UAM football and basketball games for almost half a century, will also be honored with the UAM Athletic Spirit Award.
            
Tickets to the Hall of Fame induction banquet may be purchased by contacting Jim Brewer, UAM director of media services, at (870) 460-1074, or Bill Wisener, president of the UAM Sports Association, at (870) 367-5334.
            
Kelton Busby owned nearly every UAM scoring record when he finished his basketball career in 1968.  An NAIA honorable mention All-American, Busby held UAM scoring records for a career, season and game. He scored 1,527 points from 1963 to 1968 and still ranks eighth on UAM’s career scoring charts. His 614 points in 1966-67 is the fifth best single season total in school history and his 38-point outburst against Bethel in 1966 still puts him in the top 12 in single-game scoring.
            
Busby set the UAM record for scoring average (since broken) with 20.5 points a game in 1966-67. He also set records (since broken) for field goals made in a career (588) and a season (237).
            
Anthony Brown is one of just six UAM football players to be recognized as a first team All-American, earning the honor from the NAIA in 1990. Brown was a starter at center for most of his four-year career and anchored one of the best offensive lines in school history in 1987. The ’87 Boll Weevils still hold the school record for rushing in a season, rolling up 2,882 yards and 29 touchdowns on the ground while averaging 5.6 yards a carry. That same team ranks sixth in total offense with 3,937 yards.
            
“Anthony was as good as any offensive lineman I’ve ever coached,” said former UAM head coach Tommy Barnes. “He was one of those guys who could dominate a defensive lineman.”
            
Twenty-nine years after his final game, Melvin Beavers still holds the UAM career record for tackles. An honorable mention All-American and two-time All-AIC linebacker, Beavers made 592 tackles, including 311 solo. His 184 tackles in 1978 is still the second best single-season total in school history. Beavers was UAM’s leading tackler for three straight seasons, compiling 184 in 1978, 171 in 1977, and 126 in 1976.
            
It was Beavers, along with Steve Mullins, Art Kaufman, Terry Alexander and Donald Harris, who led a renaissance of the UAM football program under Harold Tilley in the late 1970’s after a decade of losing records.
            
Anita McChristian Harrod was the first legitimate star of the UAM women’s basketball program after the sport was reinstated in 1973. Harrod was a four-time All-Arkansas Women’s Intercollegiate Sports Association selection, joining Gwen Walker and Tina Webb as the only four-time all-conference selections in school history.
            
A sharp-shooting forward, Harrod scored 1,527 points and is still seventh on UAM’s career scoring charts 28 years after her last game.  During Harrod’s career, the Cotton Blossoms won or shared four straight AWISA championships while compiling a record of 75 wins and 26 losses.
            
The late Harry Denson coached the UAM track and cross country teams from 1966 until his retirement in 1988. He produced 16 All-Americans and UAM’s only national champions – Greg Culp in the decathlon and Dontra Boykins in the 100-meter dash.
            
Three of Denson’s athletes, long jumper Anthony Beal, shot putter Milton Williams, and distance runner Damon Martin, competed in the Olympic Trials. Martin has gone on to be a 12-time national track coach of the year at Adams State (Colo.) College.
            
Denson was the outstanding athlete at Warren High School in 1945 and was the starting center on the 1949 national champion junior college football team at Little Rock Junior College (now UALR). He coached 11 years at Crossett High School and one year at West Memphis before coming to UAM. He passed away in 1993 and was inducted into the Arkansas Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2003.
            
Tommy Matthews is the second recipient of the UAM Athletic Spirit Award. He has operated the scoreboards at Convoy Leslie-Cotton Boll Stadium and Steelman Fieldhouse with few interruptions since graduating from what was then Arkansas A&M in 1958.
            
Matthews had a distinguished career as a public school administrator before his retirement, but his first love was – and still is – Boll Weevil and Cotton Blossom athletics. “I can’t think of anyone more deserving of the UAM Athletic Spirit Award than Tommy Matthews,” said UAM Chancellor Jack Lassiter. “It was for people like Tommy that this award was created. “