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BLUE RAIDER HALL OF FAME
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    • Dionne Rose Henley

    Inducted: 2006
    Sports: Assistant Track and Field Coach, Athletic Administration

    Dionne Rose Henley was MT's first female All-American in any sport, achieving the honor twice in both the high hurdles and the long jump. A determined, fierce competitor, Henley set four school records indoors and two outdoors.

    NCAA champion in the indoor high hurdles and OVC Track Woman of the Year in 1994, she has held MT's indoor record in the long jump, the 55-meter dash and the 55-meter hurdles and outdoor records in the long jump and 100-meter hurdles. She was a member of the record-setting 1994 4x100 meter relay team. Rose Henley was ranked fourth in the world in 1996 before her fifth place finish in the Olympics in Atlanta. She left MT in 1994 to go pro and returned to MT to complete her degree and coach for her mentor, Dean Hayes, in 2005.

    Class of 2012

    Mike Caldwell
    Football

    Diane Cummings Turnham
    Athletic Administration

    Harry Gupton
    Basketball, Baseball

    Tawanya Mucker Wilson
    Basketball

    Jayhawk Owens
    Baseball

    History of the Hall of Fame

    In the early spring of 1975, a pair of long-time supporters of Middle Tennessee State University's athletic program decided that the University should honor its greatest athletes. Homer Pittard, alumni director, and Gene Sloan, public relations director, came up with the idea and asked sports information director Jim Freeman to join them in setting up an athletic hall of fame.

    After getting approval for the Hall of Fame from President M. G. Scarlett, the trio began laying the groundwork to select the first inductees. Others, including Bob Womack and Joe Nunley, were also involved.

    "We decided not to have categories but to put all candidates in one group," said Freeman. "We also decided against inducting a large group to start with and felt that three per year was the ideal number. That way, everyone got a good share of the spotlight."

    The nominating and voting for the first several years was done by members of the old "T" Club, now reorganized and called the Varsity Club. Nominations were solicited, and the the list of candidates was mailed to the voters. They selected Horace Jones, Charles "Bubber" Murphy and Teddy Morris as the initial inductees in 1976.

    The Blue Raider Hall of Fame was originally housed in the old Blue Raider Room under the west side of the football stadium. It had to be torn down when then stadium was expanded in 1998. After several years without a home, the Hall of Fame moved into the new Rose and Emmett Kennon Sports Hall of Fame building in 2004.