Basketball News Lombard, Johnson, Young join PSHOF Three of the five coaches and athletes who were inducted into the Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame June 13, 2021, were selected for their success in basketball. Joe Lombard, Rayford Young and the late Noel Johnson and were inducted into the PSHOF at the Amarillo Civic Center Grand Plaza along with a football player and a track and field star in a ceremony moved from the traditional February to June because of COVID-19. Plans are for future ceremonies to take place in June each year in order to coincide with school years rather than calendar years. Lombard, who retired after the 2019-20 basketball season, coached Nazareth and Canyon girls teams to 19 state championships in 42 years – six titles for the Swiftettes and 13 for the Lady Eagles. His 1,379-133 record gave him a 91.2% winning percentage. His teams won 1,000 games before losing 100. In addition, Lombard’s cross country teams won two state championships at Nazareth and five at Canyon. And his wife, Babs, won a state title as basketball coach at Hale Center. Noel Johnson won two state championships in 1990 and 1991 as a player at Nazareth, a national championship as Texas Tech’s starting point guard in 1993 and won more games in 12 years as Midwestern State’s head coach than any other in the school’s history. Johnson died this June at age 47. Rayford Young was a star at Pampa and Texas Tech. He led the Harvesters to the state title in 1996 and averaged 14.1 points a game for the Red Raiders from 1996 to 2000, including a 17.8-point average as a senior. His son, Trae Young, was a prolific scorer for Oklahoma and now plays for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. Also inducted June 13 were Steve Garmon, an outstanding football player at Groom and TCU, and Sharon Moultrie-Bruner of Pampa, the first Texas Tech woman to earn All-American honors during her track career from 1979 to 1982 and the first AfricanAmerican woman to be selected as Tech’s homecoming queen. Athletes and coaches of the year were honored for two seasons as a result of the overlap caused by moving the ceremony from February to June. Honored as basketball athlete of the year for 2020 was Qua Grant of West Texas A&M University. The 2021 honorees were Joel Murray of WT and Allie Schulte of Lubbock Christian University. Five coaches were recognized as coaches of the year after their teams won state high school championships: Eric Schilling of the Nazareth girls and Shannon Fisher of the Gruver girls for 2020 and Tate Lombard of the Canyon girls, Boston Hudson of the Clarendon boys and Coby Beckner of the Texline boys for 2021.
The late Noel Johnson’s photo was projected on a screen at the annual Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame ceremony June 13, 2021, in the Grand Plaza of the Amarillo Civic Center. She was one of five inductees into the PSHOF and one of three basketball players or coaches among the five. (Photo by Mike Haynes)
Marsha Sharp, former Texas Tech Lady Raider coach, and Joe Lombard, recently retired girls coach at Canyon and Nazareth, enjoy the program during the Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame ceremony June 13, 2021. Sharp spoke in recognition of her former player, Noel Johnson, who died of cancer in June 2020, and Lombard was inducted into the PSHOF after retiring in April 2020. (Photo by Mike Haynes)
Retired Coach Robert Hale attended the 2021 Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame ceremony in support of Rayford Young, his former player who helped Hale’s Pampa Harvesters to the 1996 state basketball championship. (Photo by Mike Haynes)
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Basketball News
2021-2022 Panhandle-Plains Basketball
