Glory Days is a regular feature of Enquirer Media celebrating key moments, personalities and teams in Cincinnati’s rich preps sports history. Send your story ideas to mlaughman@enquirer.com
Mark Schmetzer| Enquirer contributor
To help celebrate Black History Month, Preps Plus endeavored to identify Greater Cincinnati’s all-time top African-American high school athletes and some of the more outstanding coaches. Sources include the Cincinnati Public Schools Athletic Hall of Fame, the LaRosa’s High School Sports Hall of Fame, Cincinnati.com archives and the Ohio High School Athletic Association website. Athletes were selected based solely on their high school accomplishments, with an emphasis on versatility, and are presented in alphabetical order.
Athletes
Shaun Alexander, Boone County, Class of 1995:Alexander rewrote local, state and national record books while leading the Rebels' football team to the Class 4A state championship game his final year in high school. According to a 2014 Enquirer Glory Days article on him, the numbers that Alexander put up rank among the best in United States prep football history.He averaged 211 yards per game and 6.94 yards per carry. He scored what remains a state record 50 rushing touchdowns, 54 touchdowns total, at the time a state record and eighth-best nationally. His 326 points scored that season, breaking a 31-year old Kentucky mark previously set in 1963, remain a state standard.He is officially credited by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association with 6,662 career rushing yards and 110 total touchdowns. He had 2,401 yards rushing and 42 touchdowns as a junior. The career TD total is tied for fifth all-time in Kentucky. His 104 rushing scores rank fourth. His epic senior season earned him a spot in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd (he later appeared on the magazine's cover as a pro) and caused college coaches to reevaluate him late in the recruiting process.
Andre Barkley, Cincinnati Country Day
, Class of 1995: Barkley earned 12 varsity letters in football, basketball and track. He scored 78 touchdowns and gained 7,682 yards, 6,574 rushing, and was a two-time Enquirer Division II-V Player of the Year.
Barkley won the 1993 Division III 100-meter state championship and scored more than 1,000 career points in basketball, earning a spot on the Enquirer’s all-city team as a senior.
Donna Burks, Western Hills, Class of 1980: Burks earned varsity letters in basketball, track-and-field and softball for the Mustangs. As a sophom*ore center fielder, she helped Western Hills win a 1978 district championship and she set school basketball records by scoring 51 points and grabbing 39 rebounds in a single game against Our Lady of Angels. She was the first female and first African-American to be inducted into the Western Hills Hall of Honor.
Richard Hall, Wyoming, Class of 1999: Hall ranks sixth on Ohio’s career rushing list with 7,376 yards, second with 121 total touchdowns and fourth 726 points. His 2,855 rushing yards as a senior in 1998 set the city record at the time and was one yard shy of the state record. He also finished his career with 11 interceptions on defense and was named by the Associated Press as the Division IV Player of the Year and the Ohio Player of the Year by the Football Coaches Association.
Hall also was a four-year started on the basketball team and finished his career with a school-record 1,373 points.
Vincent Harrison, Princeton, Class of 1998: As a Vikings’ senior, Harrison was named first-team all-city in football, basketball and baseball. He was most productive in baseball, hitting .571 and setting the single-season school record with 43 runs batted in. In football, he was an Enquirer first-team all-city quarterback after rushing for 961 yards, passing for 1,164 yards and scoring 11 touchdowns.
He also earned all-state honorable mention in basketball after averaging 17 points per game as a Princeton guard.
William DeHart Hubbard, Walnut Hills
, Class of 1921: Besides playing football and basketball, Hubbard also ran track and participated in gymnastics. When the League Athletic Board declared him ineligible to play because of his race, the entire Walnut Hills football team refused to play without him, according to the Cincinnati Public Schools Athletic Hall of Fame.
Hubbard earned a $3,000 scholarship offered in an Enquirer subscription contest that paid his way to the University of Michigan.
Walter Johnson, Taft, Class of 1961: The 6-foot-4, 230-pound Johnson was a major part of one of the most accomplished athletic classes in CPS history. As a football fullback, he helped lead the Senators to back-to-back Public High School League championships. Johnson also started on Taft teams that won PHSL titles in his junior and senior years, and he threw the shotput and discus for Senator teams that, yes, won back-to-back PHSL and district titles.
Tammy McCallum, Milford
, Class of 1992: McCallum earned 11 varsity letters in volleyball, basketball and track for the Eagles. She left Milford with career school basketball records in points, rebounds, made field goals and free throws while leading the Eagles to a combined 75-17 record.
In track, McCallum won the Ohio Division I state shot put championship as a junior in 1991. She was named the Enquirer’s basketball Player of the Year as a junior in 1991 and the track Athlete of the Year as a senior in 1992.
Leon Murray, North College Hill, Class of 1974: Murray led the city in scoring in football and basketball as a senior and earned four varsity letters in each sport while also earning letters in baseball and track.
Ahmed Plummer, Wyoming, Class of 1995: Plummer earned 12 varsity letters in football, basketball, baseball and track for the Cowboys. He was a two-way starter at quarterback and defensive back and graduated with five records, including longest touchdown run from scrimmage – 99 yards. He was named Division IV first-team all-city on offense and defense and player of the year both by the Enquirer and in Ohio by the Associated Press.
Carlos Snow, Cincinnati Academy of Physical Education
, Class of 1987: Ranked third in Ohio with 7,866 career rushing yards, fifth with 106 touchdowns and seventh in career points. Snow was a three-time Enquirer football Player of the Year as well as an Ohio’s Player of the Year.
Snow also won the state 100-meter dash championship as a sophom*ore and anchored the Crusader 400 relay team that won the state title as a senior, as well as spending three years as a starter at guard for the Crusader
basketball team.
Honorable mention:
Helburn “Bud” Meadows, Central Vocational, Class of 1949: Meadows earned 13 varsity letters, mostly in football, basketball and baseball at Central, according to the CPS Athletic Hall of Fame website. Information on his career is sketchy, but he was accomplished enough at baseball to be signed by the Dodgers as the heir apparent to Roy Campanella as their catcher, according to the CPS.
Coaches
Paul Andrews: Logged more than 400 wins as basketball coach at Taft, Woodward, Princeton and Lockland, where he guided the 2005-2006 Panthers to the Division IV state semifinals.
Anita Burke:
The 1976 Hughes graduate coached girls basketball at CAPE, Walnut Hills and Hughes. She ranks 23rd on Ohio’s career coaching wins list with 467, racking up 19 league titles – 15 with the Big Red – as well as 13 coach of the year awards. Burke also won six league championships in 12 seasons as a volleyball coach.
Joe Martin, Lockland Wayne: Led Lockland Wayne to two Class B state basketball championships over four seasons from 1952 through 1955. Sixteen of his players earned all-state honors.
Frank Shands: After excelling as a halfback and defensive lineman at now-defunct Hartwell High School in the last 1930s, Shands put together an impressive career as a track coach for 17 years at DePorres, six at Purcell and 20 at Princeton before finishing his career at Winton Woods.
Willard Stargel Jr., Woodward, Class of 1940: An all-league and all-city football player, Stargel also played guard on a Bulldogs basketball team that won 21 straight games before losing in the state semifinals. He also was a city champion in the high hurdles. He coached teams in several sports at Taft from 1955 through 1964 and football and wrestling at Woodward from 1965 through his June 1979 retirement. The stadium at Taft is named in his honor.
