Hall of Fame
The accomplishments of the 1956 Arkansas A&M basketball team remain unique in the school’s athletic history.
The ’56 Boll Weevils weren’t supposed to contend for a league title against heavily favored Arkansas Tech. Their coach, the late Troy Bledsoe, was a rookie fresh out of the high school ranks; their point guard wasn’t recruited; another guard was a reject from the football team; and they lost their first game by 43 points.
Jack Jordan, who became one of the state’s top amateur golfers, was the unrecruited point guard. Levin Johnson, a highly successful basketball coach in later years, was the guard who went out for basketball only after suffering an injury in football practice. Together with Billy Joe Thurman, Jim Trimm, Eudell Ragland and the late Sid Ragland, they formed the nucleus of the only men’s basketball team in school history to win a conference championship. The other team members included Luke Thornton, John Ellington, Bobby Evans, Virgil Grice, Don King, the late Eugene Jennings, and manager Leon Smith.
The ’56 Weevils clinched the school’s first and only AIC basketball title on February 26, 1956 with a 73-66 victory over an Arkansas Tech team that had ruled the conference for much of the previous decade.
The induction of the ’56 Weevils marks the first time an entire team has been selected for the UAM Sports Hall of Fame. “We felt that, because of the unique nature of their accomplishments, the ’56 Weevils deserved to go in as a group rather than recognize one or two individuals from that team,” said UAM Chancellor Jack Lassiter. “They remain an important part of our athletic history and I am glad the Hall of Fame Committee chose to honor them in this way.”
