Pre-1948

CLASS OF 2024 INDUCTEES

Frank Broyles

Decatur High School Graduate

Frank Broyles is best known as the College Football Hall of Fame coach who won seven Southwest Conference championships and a 1964 national title at Arkansas. He also was a popular color commentator alongside Keith Jackson covering football games for ABC Sports. As a 1941 senior at Decatur Boys High, Broyles was perhaps the best all-around schoolboy athlete in Georgia. In football, playing in the single-wing offense, the red-headed Broyles was a passer, runner, kicker and punter who scored 112 points and 15 touchdowns on a 7-2 team. In basketball, he averaged 17 points and led Decatur to the Class B semifinals. In baseball, he batted .420 and was his team’s ace pitcher. He played football and basketball at Georgia Tech. As the Yellow Jackets’ quarterback in 1945, Broyles set the Orange Bowl record for passing yards (304), a mark broken 55 years later by Michigan’s Tom Brady. Broyles was the Chicago Bears’ third-round NFL Draft pick in 1946. The Basketball Association of America, which later merged with another league to form the NBA, also drafted Broyles in the third round, but Broyles went straight into coaching. Among his many honors are inductions into the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame (1960), the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame (1971) and the College Football Hall of Fame (1983). Broyles passed away in 2017 at age 92.

Everett Strupper

Riverside Military Academy Graduate

Everett Strupper was the first former Georgia high school player to become a consensus college football All-American as the star halfback on Georgia Tech’s 1917 national championship team. In 1913, he was a prep standout at Gainesville’s Riverside Military College. The Atlanta Constitution described him as “the star of the day” in Riverside and Georgia Military’s game “for the championship of the state.” In the 20-20 tie, Strupper threw two touchdown passes and ran for the other score. Strupper, who was partially deaf and called his team’s signals so he could anticipate the snap, was a three-year starting halfback at Georgia Tech and led the Yellow Jackets to a 24-0-2 record. Tech coach John Heisman said of Strupper in 1934: “Were I compelled to risk my head on what one absolutely unaided gridster might accomplish, football under arm and facing 11 ferocious opponents, I would rather choose and chance this man on how he might come through the gauntlet than any ball carrier I have ever seen.” Strupper went on to become president of Atlanta’s Piedmont Life Insurance Company and was the first president of the Atlanta Touchdown Club. He passed away in 1950 at the age of 53. Strupper is a member of the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame (1956), the College Football Hall of Fame (1972) and the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame (1974).

PREVIOUS INDUCTEES

Clint Castleberry

Boys High School Graduate

(Class of 2022) Clint Castleberry is perhaps the greatest pre-World War II high school player in state history. He started on three championship teams in the GIAA (highest classification) in 1939-41, during which Atlanta’s Boys High compiled a 32-1-3 record playing opponents from Miami to Knoxville, Tenn. He was the leading scorer for the 1941 team considered Georgia’s best of the first half of the 20th century. The ’41 Boys team outscored Georgia opponents 398-0. Castleberry also was an all-GIAA basketball and baseball player. Castleberry played at Georgia Tech for a single season and finished third in Heisman Trophy voting as a freshman while leading Tech to the Cotton Bowl. Tech was 3-6 the season prior. On Oct. 3, 1942, the Castleberry-led Yellow Jackets defeated Notre Dame for the first time since 1928, giving the Fighting Irish their first loss in two years. Castleberry’s No. 19 remains the only football jersey to be retired at Georgia Tech. In 2007, the AJC named Castleberry the No. 2 high school football player in state history behind Herschel Walker. Castleberry is one of the five original inductees into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame (1956) and one of only two athletes. An Army pilot during World War II, Castleberry was killed when his plane went down over West Africa in 1944 at the age of 21.

Bill Hartman

Georgia Military Prep Graduate

(Class of 2023) Bill Hartman starred for Georgia Military Prep’s 1933 team that was coached by Wallace Butts and declared a state champion. According to the Macon Telegraph, Hartman “was the outstanding star of the game” in a 26-0 victory over Gordon Institute that clinched the mythical title. Hartman played quarterback and running back and was highly regarded prior to Georgia Military when playing at Madison A&M. He played fullback and linebacker at Georgia and made an All-America team in 1937. Hartman became the first Georgia Bulldog ever taken in the NFL Draft as the 69th overall pick in 1938. He played one NFL season, starting four games, though mostly backing up legendary quarterback Sammy Baugh, but he declined to return to the league and joined Georgia’s coaching staff full-time under Butts and served until 1956. He later worked as volunteer kicking coach under Vince Dooley for 20 years. Hartman became a legendary figure in the Athens community and Georgia’s athletic department. He was president of the university's alumni association and the Georgia Student Educational Fund, which was formed to raise private funds for athletic scholarships. Hartman entered the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1981, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1984 and the University of Georgia’s Circle of Honor in 1999. Hartman passed away in 2006 at age 90.

Billy Henderson

Lanier (Macon) High School Graduate

(Class of 2023) Billy Henderson is best known as a GACA Hall of Fame high school coach at Willingham and Clarke Central, but he was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1962 purely as an athlete. A Macon newspaper reporting his induction said Henderson was “believed to be the only prep athlete in Georgia to ever earn All-American honors in two sports, being named in football and baseball.” Henderson was a two-time All-Southern football player and three-year starter at Macon’s Lanier High. According to the Macon News, he scored a GIAA-record 150 points in nine games as a senior (equivalent of 25 touchdowns), breaking Clint Castleberry’s record of 138. The GIAA was Georgia's highest level at the time and included only about a dozen of the state's largest schools. Henderson scored 318 points for his career, more than 50 touchdowns, in a low-scoring era. Henderson played football and baseball at Georgia and then two seasons of minor league baseball. Henderson had a long career as a Georgia high school coach and won 285 games and state championships at Clarke Central in 1977, 1979 and 1985. Henderson passed away Feb. 14, 2018, at age 89.

George Maloof

Marist School Graduate

(Class of 2022) Georgia Maloof was a do-it-all athlete and student at Marist, playing four sports and taking the place of colonel for the Cadet Corps. He made All-State, All-Southern and prep All-America teams as a football end and was named the most valuable prep lineman by the Atlanta Touchdown Club in 1947. He also made the first Wigwam All-America team, the lone Georgian to earn this honor. His career at Georgia Tech would be best defined by the 11-0-1 1951 season. Against Georgia that year, Maloof scored four rushing touchdowns in the 48-6 win. In baseball, Maloof was named to the All-SEC team twice as a third basemen. After graduating in 1952, Maloof served two years in the Air Force and returned to football as a coach. In 1958, he started the program at St. Pius X, where he would compile a record of 168-82-12 with a 1968 state title. His sons Kevin and Keith would follow him as long-time head coaches in Gwinnett County, and his grandson Tyler Maloof is head coach now at Lanier. Georgie Maloof passed away from cancer in 2009.

Bob McWhorter

Gordon Institute Graduate

(Class of 2022) Bob McWhorter was the first widely known football star in Georgia. He was the best player on the 1908 and 1909 Gordon Institute teams from Barnesville that claimed mythical state titles while dominating a small group of rivals in a loosely regulated era. In 1922, Atlanta Constitution writer Craddock Goins named an 11-man all-time Georgia prep team. He wrote, “Bob McWhorter was the best prep athlete ever developed in Georgia. His qualifications do not require an outline here.” One year removed from Gordon Institute, McWhorter made the All-Southern team as a freshman at the University of Georgia. As senior in 1913, he became the first Georgia-grown player to be selected as a college football All-American. McWhorter was the only Southern player among the 45 nationwide to get any All-America recognition in 1913. He scored 61 touchdowns in his college career and made the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954 and the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1964. He was one of the five original inductees into UGA’s Ring of Honor in 1996. McWhorter taught law at UGA for 32 years and was Athens’ mayor for 12 before passing away in 1960.

Vernon ‘Catfish’ Smith

Lanier (Macon) High School Graduate

(Class of 2023) Vernon “Catfish” Smith earned all-state recognition in football, basketball and baseball at Lanier High in Macon. As a football player, he was a three-time All-GIAA player. The GIAA was the highest brand of Georgia high school football at the time. Smith went on to play college football at Georgia and was a consensus All-American in 1931. His most famous game came as a sophomore in 1929 when Georgia faced a heavily favored Yale team in the first game played at Sanford Stadium. Smith accounted for all of the Bulldogs’ points in a 15-0 victory. He recovered a blocked punt in the end zone, kicked the extra point, had a receiving touchdown pass from Spud Chandler for his second touchdown and added two points when he tackled a ball carrier for a safety. Smith was also a multi-sport athlete in college, playing basketball and baseball at Georgia, and was captain of both teams. After his collegiate career, Smith remained involved with football, serving on coaching staffs at Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi. After his playing and coaching careers, he joined the Air Force and rose to the rank of colonel before retiring in 1963. Smith earned the Legion of Merit, Air Force Commendation Medal (twice), World War II Victory Medal and more. In 1956, Smith and Clint Castleberry were the first two athletes inducted into the Georgia Prep Hall of Fame, which evolved into what is now the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. In 1979, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.