2009 JACKSONVILLE STATE FOOTBALL to form the Mid-South Conference, the forerunner to the GSC. Scheduling problems in the first year permitted competition only in football, with JSU winning the league’s first championship in 1971. Southeastern Louisiana and Nicholls State joined the conference, bringing the membership to eight and the league also changed its name to the Gulf South Conference. On June 1, 1992, JSU officially withdrew its membership from the GSC. During the 22 years the Gamecocks competed in the GSC, JSU won 37 regular season titles, six NCAA Division II National Championships and more All-Sports Trophies than any school in league history, including an unprecedented four consecutive for both the men’s and women’s programs from 1990-93. In fact, JSU won more GSC championships in football (9), men’s basketball (7), and baseball (5, three-way tie) than any school, past or present. More than 100 Jax State football players were named to the All-Gulf South Conference football team. Six more were selected as the “Players of the Year” at the conclusion of the season.
other year. The Athletic Hall of Fame is on permanent display in the Gamecock Center of Stephenson Gym.
Hall of Fame
Tom Drake • Bill Jones
The Jacksonville State University Athletic Hall of Fame inducted its first members of J.W. Stephenson, Barto Hughes and Ray Wedgeworth in 1972. Sixty-two former Gamecocks are currently in the Hall of Fame, with four more former Gamecocks inducted every
Class of 1972
J.W. Stephenson • Barto Hughes • Ray Wedgeworth Class of 1984
Dave Walters • Jodie Connell • Charlie Grisham Class of 1985-86
Larry Foster • Don Salls
Boyce Callahan • Buddy Cornelius Class of 1987-88
Terry Vinson • Sammy Davis Tom Roberson • Billy Hicks Class of 1988-89
Jesse Baker • Blackie Heath
Doc Lett • Howard Waldrep Class of 1989-90
Willie “Bill” Nichols • John Williams Terry Hodges • Chuck Miller Class of 1990-91
Shag Richey • Susan Puckett Class of 1991-92
Jim Glasgow • Hugh O’Shields
Bill Brantley • Clarkie Mayfield Class of 1995-96
John Krochina • Ed Lett
Malcolm Street • Alvin Wright
R ECO RDS
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COAC HE S
GAM ECO CK S
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GLOSSARY
Class of 1997-98
Jim Fuller • Keith McKeller H IS T O RY
Neal Posey • Dr. Ernest Stone Class of 1998-99
Eric Davis • Todd Jones
O VC
J.P Cain • E.C. “Baldy” Wilson Class of 2000-01
Rudy Abbott • Jerry Cole
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Class of 2004-05
Dana Bright Austin • Jana Bright McGinnis Stewart Lee • Jim Skidmore Class of 2006-07
Tracy Linton • David Gulledge Terry Harris • Graig Holman
Four former Jacksonville State football members have been inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Former JSU great Dieter Brock and former coach Don Salls became the first Jax State inductees in 1992. Former All-American Jodie Connell was inducted in 1996, while former baseball coach and sports information director Rudy Abbott was elected in 2005. Located in Birmingham, ASHOF honors the state’s sports legends.
Ice Bowl Jacksonville State vs Mississippi College in the 1989 NCAA Division II National Championship Game in Florence, Ala. On December 9, 1989, a winter storm came across the Tennessee Valley and dumped more than two inches of ice and snow the night before the Gamecocks faced GSC foe Mississippi College for the National Title on ESPN. Jax State had beaten the Choctaws 23-3 soundly earlier in the season, but Shane Stewart’s 19-yard field goal with 6:13 remaining in the third was enough to give MC the win. It was the third time in as many games that JSU had not allowed the Chocs a single TD. Snow, which fell continuously from the morning hours, turned the field into a slick maze of ice; making footing treacherous. JSU, stymied by the conditions and the 31 degree temperature, managed just 126 yards rushing. The title was vacated by the NCAA in 1992 after Mississippi College was found in violation of numerous NCAA violations.
Melvin Allen • Charley Pell
Kickoff Return
Bill Burgess • Jeff Jordan
JSU’s school record for longest kickoff return in school history is held by Ray Vinson, from Oxford. Vinson’s 103-yard
Class of 2002-03 Dieter Brock and Coach Don Salls
VanEgmond
Robert Dillard • Tim