The Basketball HOF Friday announced the first five members of the Class of '12, all of whom were directly elected by distinguished committees focused on preserving all areas from the game of basketball. These direct-elects include MEL DANIELS from the ABA Committee, DON BARKSDALE from the Early African American Pioneers Committee, LIDIA ALEXEEVA from the Int'l Committee, CHET WALKER from the Veterans Committee and PHIL KNIGHT from the Contributor Direct Election Committee. The HOF also announced Magic Senior VP PAT WILLIAMS has been selected to receive the ’12 John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors coaches, players and contributors whose accomplishments have impacted the high school, college, professional or international game. Trail Blazers radio announcer BILL SCHONELY and longtime Chicago Tribune reporter SAM SMITH were named the '12 recipients of the Curt Gowdy Awards, which are given annually to one broadcaster and one print journalist for their outstanding contributions to basketball (THE DAILY).
DOES KNIGHT DESERVE HONOR? In Tacoma, John McGrath writes, “Call me stodgy, but I’ve got this old-fashioned notion that plaques in the Basketball Hall of Fame should be reserved for those who played basketball, or coached it, or generally managed it, or officiated it or screamed about it into a microphone at courtside” (Tacoma NEWS TRIBUNE, 2/27). Dallas Morning News columnist Tim Cowlishaw said, “I think all Hall of Fames belong to coaches and players, not to administrators, not to fringe people. Is CHUCK TAYLOR and the entire Taylor family in the Hall of Fame?” But ESPN’s Michael Smith said, “Why shouldn’t Phil Knight get in? Nike is synonymous with basketball” (“Around The Horn,” ESPN, 2/24). In N.Y., Phil Mushnick writes of Knight's election that “no single commercial entity … has done more greedy dirt to sports than Nike.” The “misanthropy Nike has marketed now permeates and poisons sports” (N.Y. POST, 2/27). SPORTING NEWS’ David Steele wrote the “knee-jerk reaction is to say that Knight … doesn’t belong alongside” HOFers like BILL RUSSELL, WILT CHAMBERLAIN, MAGIC JOHNSON and LARRY BIRD. Of course, the category “significant contributors” can “be interpreted a number of ways.” Knight deserves “much less of the scorn for getting in than the Hall deserves for opening the doors to him” (SPORTINGNEWS.com, 2/26).
