To honor Black sports in Lexington, ‘Who says you can’t have your own Hall of Fame?’

In the early 1970s, Bobby Jones was a track star of such magnitude at Lafayette High School that he eventually earned induction into the Kentucky Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

After that, Jones went on to such a notable college career at Morehead State that, in 1992, he was inducted into the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame.

Yet as the years passed and melted into decades, Jones was bothered by how many of the other Black athletes he watched and competed against in Lexington during his high school days had not received the level of post-career recognition that he felt they deserved.

For Jones, a retired Fayette County educator, that started the wheels turning. After pondering why there have not been more Black athletes from Lexington nominated for the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame, Jones formed a bold idea:

Says Jones: “I just concluded, ‘Who says you can’t have your own Hall of Fame?’”

On Sept. 24 in a banquet and ceremony at the Central Bank Center, the Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame will induct its first class.

Among the 24 inductees will be some of the greatest athletes ever produced in Lexington — world champion sprinter Tyson Gay; Pro Football Hall of Famer Dermontti Dawson; University of Kentucky men’s basketball national champions Jack Givens and James Lee — as well as the 1956 Douglass High School and 1959 Dunbar High School boys’ basketball teams.

The deadline to buy tickets for the event is Sept. 15. The cost is $100. Ticket information is available at https://bit.ly/3xoWQwb.

As of Monday, Jones — who is president and CEO of the LAASHOF — said around 800 tickets had been sold for the event.

Jennifer Jones, Bobby’s wife and the co-founder of the Hall of Fame, said every living inductee intends to attend the ceremony. The plan, Jennifer Jones says, is to give those inductees an experience similar to what one gets when nominated for a BET Award.

Limousines will deliver the inductees to the Main Street entrance to the Central Bank Center.

There will be a red carpet for the inductees to walk, with an interviewer to ask questions of each.

Each honoree will be presented with a jacket with the Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame logo as well as a trophy.

University of Kentucky history professor Gerald Smith will provide context by speaking on race and sports in Lexington.

The Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame also has a college scholarship component. Three 2021 Lexington high school football players — Shyhiem Drew of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Terik Mulder of Bryan Station and Caden Johnson of Frederick Douglass — each received $4,150 supplemental scholarships.

That the LAASHOF is so close to coming to fruition is a tribute to grassroots organizing and fundraising — and one couple’s determined vision.

“I think what my husband is doing, he’s crafting the Hall of Fame experience that he wishes he’d had,” Jennifer Jones says. “When you go in a Hall of Fame, a lot of times, you don’t really know very many other people there (at the ceremony). There’s polite applause. There aren’t very many other people of color there.

“Bobby just felt like there were so many other more-deserving people who needed to be recognized by these Halls of Fame. It really bothered him to his core. So he said, ‘Why don’t we start our own?’”

That was not a simple task. “I was like, ‘OK, we don’t know how to do that, but we can,’” Jennifer Jones says. “One Saturday morning, we’re just sitting up in bed jotting down people’s names. And it’s morphed into a pretty big deal.”

Ultimately, a non-profit organization with a Board of Directors and nominating procedures were created for the LAASHOF.

Athletes, coaches, referees and contributors are all eligible for inclusion in the Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame.

“The first thing I said was, ‘We’ve got to raise money to do this,’” Bobby Jones says. “People had not heard of us. People were reluctant to donate to something they had never heard of. And let me tell you, asking people for money is hard.”

When a corporate sponsor contributed $5,000, Bobby Jones said it felt like a corner had been turned.

As with any new sports Hall of Fame, there are more people deserving of induction than can be fitted in the initial class.

Isaac Murphy, the three-time Kentucky Derby winner and the greatest American jockey of the 19th century, is not a member of the first induction class to the Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame.

Jennifer Jones says the LAASHOF did not want to conflict with the Legacy Equine Ball which honors the history of Black competitors in Kentucky horse racing.

Says Bobby Jones: “We’re second-guessing ourselves on that one. In terms of Black athletes in Lexington, Black jockeys were probably one of the first. We are living, learning. We will do a tribute to Isaac Murphy (this year), with induction more than likely to follow next year.”

The idea of someday having a building in which to hold a physical Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame is one Bobby Jones is contemplating.

But, first things first.

“I don’t consider any of this a success until we get this first class into our Hall of Fame,” Bobby Jones says. “Folks just weren’t being recognized like they should.”

2022 inductees

The 24 inductees in the inaugural class of the Lexington African-American Sports Hall of Fame:

▪ John Will “Scoop” Brown

▪ Steve Chandler

▪ Dermontti Dawson

▪ Tanya Fogle

▪ Jackie French

▪ Tyson Gay

▪ Charlie Givens

▪ Jack Givens

▪ Joe Hamilton

▪ Brenda Garner Hughes

▪ James Lee

▪ Marc Logan

▪ Shelvin Mack

▪ Dirk Minniefield

▪ S.T. Roach

▪ Michael Scearce

▪ John Shelby

▪ Charles Trumbo

▪ Bobby Washington

▪ Herbert Washington

▪ Donna Robinson Wilson

▪ George Wilson

▪ 1956 Douglass High School boys’ basketball team

▪ 1959 Dunbar High School boys’ basketball team