Photo by: Jeremy Enlow
Goodenough to be inducted into Big Country Hall of Fame
1/30/2019 4:06:00 PM | Women's Basketball
ABILENE – ACU women's basketball head coach Julie Goodenough was announced Wednesday as one of 11 new inductees into the Big Country Athletic Hall of Fame. Among the other inductees into the hall are former Abilene High School head football coach Steve Warren and three-time World Series champion John Lackey.
The 18th annual induction banquet is set for May 6 at the Abilene Convention Center. Tickets are $65 each and tables of 10 can be purchased for $800, which includes the VIP reception. To order tickets, go online to bigcountryhalloffame.org or call (325) 668-3685. A portion of table sponsorship will go to the college scholarship endowment. The Hall of Fame will again award 12 $1,000 college scholarships to graduating senior athletes from the Big Country. Including this year, the Hall of Fame will have given out $77,000 in college scholarships.
Lackey, Warren and Goodenough will be honored along with former national champion skeet shooter Jackie Ramsey Cox, former state champion and NCAA champion gymnast Mark Oates and former Abilene Wylie girls basketball coach Stanley Whisenhunt.
The 2019 Legacy Award recipients are brothers Ernie, Charlie and Don Davis of Stamford. The Bill Hart Legends Award for those who competed more than 50 years ago will be awarded posthumously to Elijah Childers, who played football, basketball and track at Abilene Woodson High School, and Ellis Jones, a former Abilene High football player who played linebacker in the National Football League despite having lost an arm in a childhood accident.
The Lifetime Achievement for Media award goes to Lance Kitchens of Breckenridge, who has been the voice of the Buckaroos in football for 38 years.
The Hall of Fame board of directors is also introducing a new award this year, called the "Impact on Big Country Athletics" Award for someone who didn't necessarily qualify as a former athlete or coach in the Big Country but made a significant impact on the Big Country. The first recipient will be the late Myrle Greathouse, a former oilman and philanthropist who played football at the University of Oklahoma.
Their inductions will bring the total number of inductees in the Big Country Athletic Hall of Fame to more than 190.
A native of Haskell, Goodenough played on a Western Texas College team that went to the National Junior College Athletic Association national basketball tournament. She then played at Texas-Arlington, becoming one of the first Big Country girls to receive an NCAA Division I basketball scholarship.
She has a combined record of 423-284 in 25 seasons as a college basketball coach at four different universities: Hardin-Simmons, Oklahoma State, Charleston Southern and ACU. Goodenough was 188-54 at HSU from 1993-2002 before taking the head coaching job at OSU where she was the head coach from 2002-05.
She coached at Charleston Southern for six seasons (2006-12) before returning home to ACU in the spring of 2012 to become the Wildcats' head coach. ACU won the Lone Star Conference regular-season championship in its final season at the NCAA Division II level (2012-13) in Goodenough's first season and then made the transition to NCAA Division I affiliation before the 2013-14 season.
The Wildcats were 18-12 in their first season at the highest classification of collegiate sports, and followed that with a 17-12 mark in 2014-15. ACU then won back-to-back regular-season Southland Conference championships in 2015-16 and 2016-17, qualifying for the Women's NIT in each season since the Wildcats weren't allowed to play in the conference tournament because they were in the midst of four years of NCAA transition.
In March 2017 the Wildcats won their first postseason game at the NCAA Division I level when they went to Stillwater, Oklahoma, and beat the OSU Cowgirls where Goodenough coached more than a decade earlier. The Wildcats were 16-14 last season, qualifying for the Southland Conference Postseason Tournament in their first year of eligibility and beating New Orleans for the program's first conference tournament victory.
This year's squad is 13-6 overall and sitting in third place in the Southland Conference standings with a 6-2 record.
Lackey, a three-sport standout at Abilene High, pitched in the major leagues for the Los Angeles Angels, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs from 2002-2017. He compiled a career record of 188-147 with 2,294 strikeouts and a career earned run average of 3.92. Lackey, who helped Grayson College to the national junior college national championship before being drafted by the Angels, was a three-time World Series champion and was the winning pitcher in the deciding game in two World Series. When he retired following the 2017 season, he was the second winningest active pitcher in baseball.
Warren led Abilene High to the Class 5A Division II 2009 state football championship and compiled a record of 175-68 in 19 seasons at AHS from 1996-2014, finishing his career as the school's all-time leader in wins. His career coaching record is 190-82, which included stints at Wall and Rotan. Abilene High hadn't been to the state playoffs for 40 years until Warren guided the Eagles to the regional finals in 1999. Warren and the Eagles reached the playoffs in 15 of the next 16 years.
A movie about Warren's 2009 team – titled "Brother's Keeper" and based on the book of the same name co-authored by Al Pickett and Chad Mitchell – is currently filming some final scenes in Abilene and is set for a March 30 world premiere in Abilene.
The 18th annual induction banquet is set for May 6 at the Abilene Convention Center. Tickets are $65 each and tables of 10 can be purchased for $800, which includes the VIP reception. To order tickets, go online to bigcountryhalloffame.org or call (325) 668-3685. A portion of table sponsorship will go to the college scholarship endowment. The Hall of Fame will again award 12 $1,000 college scholarships to graduating senior athletes from the Big Country. Including this year, the Hall of Fame will have given out $77,000 in college scholarships.
Lackey, Warren and Goodenough will be honored along with former national champion skeet shooter Jackie Ramsey Cox, former state champion and NCAA champion gymnast Mark Oates and former Abilene Wylie girls basketball coach Stanley Whisenhunt.
The 2019 Legacy Award recipients are brothers Ernie, Charlie and Don Davis of Stamford. The Bill Hart Legends Award for those who competed more than 50 years ago will be awarded posthumously to Elijah Childers, who played football, basketball and track at Abilene Woodson High School, and Ellis Jones, a former Abilene High football player who played linebacker in the National Football League despite having lost an arm in a childhood accident.
The Lifetime Achievement for Media award goes to Lance Kitchens of Breckenridge, who has been the voice of the Buckaroos in football for 38 years.
The Hall of Fame board of directors is also introducing a new award this year, called the "Impact on Big Country Athletics" Award for someone who didn't necessarily qualify as a former athlete or coach in the Big Country but made a significant impact on the Big Country. The first recipient will be the late Myrle Greathouse, a former oilman and philanthropist who played football at the University of Oklahoma.
Their inductions will bring the total number of inductees in the Big Country Athletic Hall of Fame to more than 190.
A native of Haskell, Goodenough played on a Western Texas College team that went to the National Junior College Athletic Association national basketball tournament. She then played at Texas-Arlington, becoming one of the first Big Country girls to receive an NCAA Division I basketball scholarship.
She has a combined record of 423-284 in 25 seasons as a college basketball coach at four different universities: Hardin-Simmons, Oklahoma State, Charleston Southern and ACU. Goodenough was 188-54 at HSU from 1993-2002 before taking the head coaching job at OSU where she was the head coach from 2002-05.
She coached at Charleston Southern for six seasons (2006-12) before returning home to ACU in the spring of 2012 to become the Wildcats' head coach. ACU won the Lone Star Conference regular-season championship in its final season at the NCAA Division II level (2012-13) in Goodenough's first season and then made the transition to NCAA Division I affiliation before the 2013-14 season.
The Wildcats were 18-12 in their first season at the highest classification of collegiate sports, and followed that with a 17-12 mark in 2014-15. ACU then won back-to-back regular-season Southland Conference championships in 2015-16 and 2016-17, qualifying for the Women's NIT in each season since the Wildcats weren't allowed to play in the conference tournament because they were in the midst of four years of NCAA transition.
In March 2017 the Wildcats won their first postseason game at the NCAA Division I level when they went to Stillwater, Oklahoma, and beat the OSU Cowgirls where Goodenough coached more than a decade earlier. The Wildcats were 16-14 last season, qualifying for the Southland Conference Postseason Tournament in their first year of eligibility and beating New Orleans for the program's first conference tournament victory.
This year's squad is 13-6 overall and sitting in third place in the Southland Conference standings with a 6-2 record.
Lackey, a three-sport standout at Abilene High, pitched in the major leagues for the Los Angeles Angels, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs from 2002-2017. He compiled a career record of 188-147 with 2,294 strikeouts and a career earned run average of 3.92. Lackey, who helped Grayson College to the national junior college national championship before being drafted by the Angels, was a three-time World Series champion and was the winning pitcher in the deciding game in two World Series. When he retired following the 2017 season, he was the second winningest active pitcher in baseball.
Warren led Abilene High to the Class 5A Division II 2009 state football championship and compiled a record of 175-68 in 19 seasons at AHS from 1996-2014, finishing his career as the school's all-time leader in wins. His career coaching record is 190-82, which included stints at Wall and Rotan. Abilene High hadn't been to the state playoffs for 40 years until Warren guided the Eagles to the regional finals in 1999. Warren and the Eagles reached the playoffs in 15 of the next 16 years.
A movie about Warren's 2009 team – titled "Brother's Keeper" and based on the book of the same name co-authored by Al Pickett and Chad Mitchell – is currently filming some final scenes in Abilene and is set for a March 30 world premiere in Abilene.
ACU Baseball: Rick McCarty Press Conference | May 11, 2026
Tuesday, May 12
ACU Baseball: Senior Day Ceremony | May 9, 2026
Saturday, May 09
ACU Softball: Jo Koons Press Conference | May 4, 2026
Monday, May 04
ACU Women's Basketball: Julie Goodenough Press Conference | May 4, 2026
Monday, May 04
