Getting to know the Macon Sports Hall of Fame inductees
The Macon Sports Hall of Fame will induct eight new members Thursday night at the Macon Coliseum. Here’s a look at the 2017 class.
Michael Brown
Running back Michael Brown put his name in the Southwest record book in just the fourth year of that program’s existence. Brown, who was a three-year starter for Southwest became the first Patriots running back to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season. He rushed for 1,152 yards while leading the 1973 team of head coach Jimmy Hammond to an 8-2 record, the first of just four eight-win seasons in the history of Southwest. Brown scored 12 touchdowns that season when the Patriots averaged 26.6 point per game. His best high school game came against Glenn Hills of Augusta when he rushed for 225 yards and scored two touchdowns in a 26-8 victory.
After his illustrious high school career, Brown accepted a football scholarship to Purdue University, where he was a three-year letterwinner for the Boilermakers. In his sophomore season, he averaged 5.9 yards per carry in limited action and then as a senior starting tailback, he carried the ball 77 times for 377 yards for an average of 4.1 yards per carry, and he scored two touchdowns. Both touchdowns came against Wake Forest as the Boilermakers beat the Demon Deacon 26-17. He also caught three passes for 17 yards during the season. He suffered a knee injury midway through his junior season and missed the second half of that campaign. After completing his degree at Purdue, he returned to Macon and worked with the recreation department for almost 25 years.
Tim Clifton
Macon native Tim Clifton will begin his 25th season as the football head coach at Mars Hill University and his 41st overall in the coaching ranks this fall. During his almost a quarter of a century as the Lions’ head coach, he has compiled a 130-123 record with 16 of his previous 24 teams posting winning season records. He holds the Mars Hill record for most wins by a head coach. He is the second all-time winningest coach in the South Atlantic Conference and is also second in all-time conference wins. He was named conference coach of the Year in 2011 after leading Mars Hills to a conference championship and the program’s first spot in the NCAA Division II playoffs. Prior to taking the job at Mars Hills, Clifton, coached for five years in high school and also spent time in college football as an assistant at South Carolina, VMI, Fayetteville State and Ferrum College.
Clifton’s Macon roots are deep. He played his first two years of high school sports at Willingham before transferring to Stratford Academy as a junior. While with the Eagles, he was the starting quarterback on the 1970 state football championship team, and he was the starting point guard on the Eagles’ 1971 state basketball title team and the starting shortstop on the 1972 baseball champion team. He still holds the Stratford record for a pass interception for a touchdown of 103 yards, and he had a .338 batting average as a baseball player. A charter member of the Stratford Hall of Fame, he was named the Best Boys Senior Athlete at the school his senior season in 1972.
After finishing at Stratford he went on to Mercer University where he was a four-year starter at second base for legendary Bears head coach Claude Smith.
Laura Conway
Swimmer Laura Conway is the second youngest person ever chosen for induction into the Macon Sports Hall of Fame. Only Chris Hatcher, who went in to the Hall in 2001, was younger. Conway is the most decorated swimmer in Macon history. While still in high school at Central, where she was a three-time scholastic All-American, Conway qualified for the Olympic Trials in the 800-meter freestyle. She also qualified for the Spring Senior Nationals and Charlotte Ultra Swim, two of the biggest meets in swimming. In 2002, she won the 500-yard freestyle at the Georgia state USS meet and also claimed the top prize in the Charlotte Ultra Swim in the 800-meter freestyle. She earned a swimming scholarship to the University of Georgia and continued her success in Athens. She was a five-time All American for the Bulldogs. She won the SEC championship in the 500-yard freestyle and also took the top spot in that same event in the 2006 NCAA Division I national championships.
Conway earned a place on the United States national team, the only Maconite to ever accomplish that feat. She had a second-place finish in the 800-meter freestyle at the U.S. nationals that qualified her for the U.S. Team at the World Championships in 2005. At that event held in Montreal, she had a fourth-place finish in the 800-meter freestyle. She qualified for the U.S. national team for the University Games in 2006 but made the decision to retire.
Lee Gerdes
Macon has produced its share of top amateur golfers through the years, and Lee Gerdes is certainly included in that group. He had a stellar high school career at Mount de Sales Academy, where he was a three-time all-region selection, a three-time region medalist and a state runner-up. Inducted into the Mount de Sales Hall of Fame in 2008, he set program records in career scoring average, season scoring average and match score. His high school success earned him a golf scholarship to the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, where he continued to excel. As a four-year letterwinner for the Mocs, he was a two-time All-Southern Conference selection and a two-year team captain. His college record shows one individual tournament title, 18 top-20 finishes, 10 top-10 finishes and six top-five finishes. He was a member of Chattanooga’s first Southern Conference championship.
But Gerdes really has made his mark as an amateur in Middle Georgia and around the state. He is an eight-time Cherry Blossom champion, five-time Honors champion, five-time City of Macon champion, four-time Macon-Middle Georgia champion, three-time Golden Isles champion and a one-time Peach Blossom winner. Overall, he has captured more than 25 amateur titles.
He qualified for the 1989 U.S. Amateur in the Atlanta qualifier as the low qualifier and made it to match play. He has been the club champion at three Macon area country clubs. He has won the Healy Point Club title 10 times, the River Forest championship seven times and the title at Idle Hour once.
Tony Gilbert
Tony Gilbert was a standout performer at Central High School for head coach Tom Simonton. He was the team captain of the Chargers his senior season when he recorded 105 tackles and had two interceptions. He was selected to play in the Georgia-Florida all-star football game in 1999.
Gilbert signed a football scholarship to the University of Georgia and was a three-year starter for the Bulldogs, leading them in tackles all three of those seasons. He is the only player to lead Georgia in tackles three different years since defensive records started being kept in 1976. For his career, he had 328 tackles. During his senior season, he had 114 tackles, 2.5 sacks, 15 stops for losses, 13 quarterback pressures, one forced fumble and two deflected passes. He was named All-SEC while captaining Georgia’s 2002 SEC championship team that finished with a 13-1 record. He was also an outstanding student and was chosen for the SEC Academic Honor Roll.
Following his college career, he was a sixth-round NFL draft choice of the Arizona Cardinals. He never played for Arizona, he did spend eight seasons in professional football — six with the Jacksonville Jaguars and two with the Atlanta Falcons.
Following his playing days, he embarked on a coaching career. He has coached in the high school ranks at John Milledge Academy and in college at Georgia Military, East Mississippi, Georgia, Auburn and North Carolina, where he currently works as an assistant linebacker coach and a defensive quality control specialist.
Bob Hoffman
Bob Hoffman completed his ninth season as men’s basketball head coach at Mercer University back in March. During his tenure, the program has enjoyed more success on the hardwood than any other nine-year period in Mercer history. His overall record with the Bears is 179-130 and his 179 wins are the second most all time, trailing only Bill Bibb, who holds the record with 222.
Hoffman was named Atlantic Sun Conference Coach of the Year in 2013 and 2014 after guiding Mercer to regular-season A-Sun titles both seasons. His 2014 team also won the A-Sun tournament title, which earned it a berth in the NCAA Tournament where it upset Duke University in a second-round game, 78-70. Wins over power conference teams have been the norm for Hoffman during his time in Macon. In addition to Duke, his teams have beaten Alabama (twice), Auburn, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Seton Hall among others
In addition to the NCAA Tournament, Mercer has played in the four other postseason tournaments, winning the CIT in 2013. Mercer is the only team to post a win in each of the four postseason events.
Hoffman, an Oklahoma native, is a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University. His college coaching resume includes stops at Southern Nazarene, where he won a national women’s championship, Oklahoma Baptist and Texas Pan American. He also was an assistant at the University of Oklahoma under Kelvin Sampson. Hoffman coached professionally for the Arkansas Aeros in the American Basketball League and for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers on the NBA D-League.
James Outlaw
James Outlaw was Ballard Hudson High School’s final great basketball player prior to the merger of that school with Willingham to form Southwest as part of integration. The 6-foot guard was a Parade Magazine All-American his senior season, averaging 34 points per game. He led the Maroon Tigers to a berth in the GHSA state tournament where they lost 75-64 in the semifinals to eventual champion Decatur. Ballard Hudson finished fourth in the state after losing 75-70 to Carver-Columbus in the consolation game. During his senior season, Outlaw scored a career-high 53 points against Willingham. He also averaged more than 30 points per game his junior season.
After he completed his prep career, Outlaw joined his high school coach, Warren Reynolds, at North Carolina A&T. Reynolds was named head coach at A&T after the 1970 high school season. At A&T, Outlaw was a two-time all-conference selection. He averaged 16.6 points per game as a junior and 24.9 as a senior, which was the seventh best in the country in Division I basketball. He scored 448 points as a junior when the Aggies finished 16-11 and 647 as a senior when they ended the year at 16-10. He was drafted by a team in Munich, Germany, but the league it was a member of never got going, and Outlaw’s playing career ended. He did, however, remain associated with basketball for a brief period of time scouting and recruiting for A&T.
Robert Scott
Robert “Bob” Scott was quite the baseball player coming along about the time Jackie Robinson integrated the sport. Scott never made it to the majors, but he was a star in the Negro leagues. Pitching as a 16-year-old for the Macon Braves, a team owned by his father, Scott was discovered by the New York Black Yankees when they played a game in Macon as they made their way up the coast after spring training.
Scott said, “I could throw harder than a mule could kick.” Black Yankees management apparently agreed with him and signed him to a contact, and for the next four seasons, he pitched and played first base for the team and then spent one season with the Memphis Red Sox. The Black Yankees had one of the most famous teams in the Negro Leagues, and Scott got the opportunity to play with the likes of future Baseball Hall of Famers Larry Doby, Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella. Scott also barnstormed with the Jackie Robinson All Stars. Playing for the Black Yankees, Scott earned $300 per month with a $1 per diem.
After baseball integrated, Scott was signed by George Sisler of the Pittsburgh Pirates and was assigned to their Double-A team in North Forks, North Dakota, but he fell in love and got married in New Jersey and did not report and became a brick mason.
But Scott never gave up his passion for baseball, playing on several semi-pro teams, including the Sandersville Giants of the Georgia State League, where one of his teammates was future San Francisco Giants great Willie McCovey. Scott retired from baseball in 1963.
The New York Yankees recognized Scott as one of the greatest of the Negro League players.
This story was originally published May 8, 2017 at 4:56 PM with the headline "Getting to know the Macon Sports Hall of Fame inductees."