State Hall of Fame calls Evans
Published 6:15 pm Monday, November 19, 2012
MONTGOMERY — The Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame will welcome 12 new members, including a former high school basketball coach at Keith High School.
The Alabama High School Athletic Association announced the 23rd class on Sunday. They’ll be inducted March 18 at the Renaissance Hotel at the Convention Center in Montgomery.
Joe Evans, who coached for 16 years at Keith High School, compiling a record of 378-85, is among the 12-member class. Evans was also an associated executive director of the AHSAA.
Also chosen were volleyball coach Julie Sinclair, coach/administrator Denise Rhodes Ainsworth, basketball coaches Raymond White, Jim Hunter Jr., and Larry Davidson, wrestling coach Stephen Gaydosh, baseball coach Michael Estes, football coaches Ben Harris and the late Arthur “Buddy” Davis. Administrator Jim Tuley and basketball official Greg England will also be inducted. Davis was selected as an “Old-timer.”
The 18-member Hall of Fame Committee made the selections from the 46 nominations.
Evans, who joined the AHSAA staff in June of 2000 and retired in 2011, was just the third associate executive director at the AHSAA since the position was created in 1968 by the merger of the AHSAA and the Alabama Interscholastic Athletic Association.
He coordinated the AHSAA’s Coaches Education program, the school audit program, the Reclassification Committee and worked with all championship events. He instituted and coordinated the annual middle school conference that provided professional development for junior high and middle school coaches and administrators.
Another major accomplishment includes his efforts to reinstate indoor track as a state championship sport. Discontinued in 2007, it was reinstated in 2008 with the state championship meet.
He also currently serves on the National Federation of High School Associations Equity Committee and Coaches Education Committee and has coordinated the AHSAA’s participation in the NFHS National Youth Leadership Conference.
Evans came to the AHSAA with 29 years of coaching and athletic administration experience. He coached at Keith High School for 16 years and then spent 10 years on Coach Gene Bartow’s men’s basketball staff at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He was serving as the athletic director and chairman of the Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Department at Lawson State Community College in Birmingham when he joined the AHSAA.
Evans retired in 2011 as associate executive director of the Alabama High School Athletic Association and is the younger brother of Selma Mayor George Evans. Mayor Evans was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002.
— Associated Press and other media reports contributed to this report.