ABILENE – Caroline Omamo, one of the most prolific players in the history of Wildcat?women's basketball, and former director of athletics Cecil Eager are among a group of six alumni to be inducted Oct. 8 into the ACU?Sports Hall of Fame.
Others include former football standout Bill Clayton, former basketball star Jim Womack, and former world-class pole vaulter Dale Jenkins. Also being inducted into the Hall of Fame will be Randy Nicholson, the 18th recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Class of 2010 – which marks the 25th anniversary of the ACU?Sports Hall of Fame and its 26th induction class – will be officially inducted into the hall during the annual festivities Friday, Oct. 8, at 6:30 p.m. in the McCaleb Conference Center at the Hunter Welcome Center. Tickets to the dinner are $20 per person and can be purchased by calling the ACU?athletics office at 325-674-2353.
The induction ceremony will also serve as the 60th reunion of the 1950 ACU?football team, the only team in Wildcat football history to finish the season unbeaten and untied (11-0). ACU?beat Gustavus Adolphus in the Refrigerator Bowl that season.
Reunions for lettermen in all sports will begin at approximately 8 p.m. in the Hunter Welcome Center, and there is no admission charge for those who wish to attend the reunions.
With the addition of the six members of this year's class, the ACU Sports Hall of Fame now includes 142 men and women. With Omamo's induction, the hall now has 17 former ACU?female student-athletes among its membership along with two other women as Lifetime Achievement Award recipients.
Omamo is the 10th-leading scorer in ACU?women's basketball history with 1,461 points and she is the seventh-leading rebounders in program history with 924. She is one of only six players in ACU?women's basketball history to score at least 1,400 points and pull down at least
900 rebounds in a career.
The recipient of an NCAA?Post-Graduate Scholarship in 1998, Omamo was a three-time first team all-Lone Star Conference selection and the 1997-98 LSC?MVP. She was also the LSC?Post-Season Tournament MVP?in 1996 and 1998 and was a member of the all-tournament team in 1997. She was a three-time first team WBCA-Kodak all-district selection and a three-time honorable mention WBCA-Kodak all-America selection.
She played in 48 of ACU's 49-game home winning streak (Jan. 23, 1995-Nov. 28, 1998), the most games played by any ACU?player in the streak. She was also a key cog on ACU's
1995-96 team that went 31-2 and finished No. 3 in the nation after spending a large portion of the season ranked No. 1 in the country. Omamo helped ACU?a combined record of 81-13 in her three seasons, two LSC?titles, one regional championship and one trip to the NCAA?Division II?Elite Eight.
Eager served as the ACU men's and women's tennis coach for 12 years (1977-83 and 1986-90), and in those 12 seasons he led the Wildcats to NCAA Division II top 10 rankings and seven Lone Star Conference championships while coaching 25 all-America players. He led the men's and women's teams to a combined 217-169-2 record.
Eager was appointed ACU director of athletics on July 16, 1990, replacing Don Drennan. During his tenure, the Wildcats won nine NCAA Division II national championships (six in women's track and field, two in men's track and field and one in men's golf) and 24 LSC championships. The Wildcats also had 21 academic all-America selections and four NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship winners. ACU also revived the baseball program in 1991 after a 12-year absence.
He resigned on April 7, 1995, to pursue private business opportunities. In August 2001, ACU's new tennis pavilion was named the Cecil and Judy Eager Tennis Pavilion in honor of Eager and his wife.
Jenkins, one of six Wildcats to win pole vault titles at the NCAA Division II national championships, still holds the outdoor meet record at 18 feet, two inches as a junior in 1984 in Cape Girardeau. He also won the title as a sophomore in 1983 and senior in 1985 and finished runner-up as a freshman in 1982.
Jenkins and his teammates won four straight NCAA Division II outdoor team championships under coach Don Hood. Before joining the Wildcats he became the first Texas high school athlete to vault 17 feet, set a national high school record at 17 feet, 10.5 inches, and appeared in “Faces in the Crowd” in Sports Illustrated magazine. Also, he was named to the high school all-America team
by Track and Field News.
Jenkins was selected to compete in the U.S. Olympic Sports Festival in 1985 in Baton Rouge, La., and three times he was a finalist in the NCAA Division I pole vault with a best finish of seventh in Eugene in 1984 at 17 feet, 4.25 inches. He finished eighth in the U.S. Olympic trials in Los Angeles in 1984 at 17 feet, five inches.
Jenkins was a three-time Lone Star Conference champion and still holds the meet record of 18 feet, 8.0 inches set in 1985. He received both the Kirk Goodwin and John Sasport Memorial Awards from ACU and the Oscar Strahan Memorial Award from the Lone Star Conference.
Clayton was a dominant defensive tackle for the Wildcats from 1986-89, earning first team all-LSC?honors three times (1987, 1988 and 1989) after earning honorable mention all-LSC?honors as a freshman in 1986. Clayton – a 1989 recipient of an NCAA?Post-Graduate Scholarship – was a three-time first team GTE?academic all-America selection, the only student-athlete in ACU?athletics history to earn the first team honor three times.
Clayton is the sixth-leading tackler in ACU?history with 351 stops, and he is sixth on the all-time sacks list with 19. Clayton
was the ACU?defensive team MVP?in 1989 and winner of the Best Tackler Award in 1986, 1987 and 1989. A second team NCAA?Division II?all-America selection in 1987 and 1988, Clayton was voted to LSC?and ACU?all-Decade Teams for the 1980s.
Womack was a four-time letterwinner for the Wildcats and captain of the 1962-63 basketball team that finished 15-9 under head coach Dee?Nutt. After graduating from Abilene Christian in 1964?with a bachelor of science in mathematics education, Womack set his basketball sneakers aside and began to make his name a household one in the science world.
He completed his PhD in Genetics in 1968 at Oregon State and then returned to Abilene Christian where he was an assistant professor of biology from 1968-71 and associate professor of biology from 1971-73. Since 1973 he has been a professor at Texas A&M?University, and in 2007 the ACU?athletics department named an award after him that is given to a graduate who has combined athletic excellence with excellence in the classroom.
Womack is known for conducting pioneering research in the cattle genome. He was responsible for the development of a whole genome cattle-hamster radiation hybrid (RH) panel. This work fueled a new thrust in cattle genomics and comparative gene mapping. RH mapping is an effective tool for building ordered maps of conserved sequences, derived from genes, thus integrating linkage and physical maps of mammalian chromosomes.
Womack has received several awards and honors for his research. In 1993, he was awarded the CIBA Prize for Research in Animal Health. In 1999, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2001, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Agriculture along with Roger N. Beachy of the Danforth Plant Science Center “for the use of recombinant DNA technology, to revolutionize plant and animal sciences, paving the way for applications to neighboring fields.”
A former member of the university's Board of Trustees, Nicholson founded AutoGas Systems Inc., and has been a longtime advocate for ACU?athletics. A 1959 graduate of Abilene Christian, Nicholson was a member of the Sub T-16 men's social club.
He began his business career as a CPA, served as president of E-Z Serve Inc. (which specialized in self-service gasoline at convenience stores) and AFCO, and is the former chairman and president of Abilene-based AutoGas Systems Inc. AutoGas pioneered a credit card pay-at-the-pump system, a concept Nicholson developed many years ago that has now gained wide acceptance. In 2007, he landed a spot on USA Today's list of the top 25 inventions in 25 years.
