Middle Tennessee State University Athletics
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Three Selected for Hall of Fame Induction
5/16/2002 3:52:00 PM | General
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - A former baseball conference player of the year, a legendary football coach and a long-time team physician have been selected as the 2002 inductees into the Blue Raider Hall of Fame.
Ken Gerhart, Leonard Staggs, posthumously, and Dr. O. Tom Johns will enter the Hall of Fame on June 21 at an induction breakfast set for 9 a.m. in the Game Day Room of Floyd Stadium on campus.
Gerhart, a 1983 graduate of Middle Tennessee, won the OVC Baseball Player of the Year award in 1982 as a junior, leading the Blue Raiders in six offensive categories during the campaign. Gerhart had team-leading totals in runs scored (49), hits (69), home runs (12), slugging percentage (.609), stolen bases (17), and tied for the team-lead with 37 RBIs, while batting .343. He also earned First Team All-South Region honors during that season, as the Blue Raiders came within one game of reaching the College World Series before losing to Oklahoma State in Stillwater, Okla.
The Murfreesboro native also earned all-conference honors as a sophomore. He played professionally for the Baltimore Orioles for two seasons before injury cut his career short.
Dr. O. Tom Johns, a 1968 Middle Tennessee graduate, was born and raised in Murfreesboro, attending Central High School where he played football for head coach Lee Pate. He was a pre-med major at Middle Tennessee and was swayed into the sports medicine field by his high school team physician, Dr. Ken Kaufman.
Johns received a bachelor's in chemistry from Middle Tennessee before earning his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Tennessee in Memphis in 1972. He served two years at Tampa General Hospital and University of South Florida Medical Center in Tampa, Fla., earning the Upjohn Achievement Award as intern of the year in 1973.
The Murfreesboro resident then moved back to the Midstate area, serving at Vanderbilt University Hospital for four years before returning to Murfreesboro and the Middle Tennessee Medical Center in 1978. Middle Tennessee head football coach Boots Donnelly asked Johns to join the Blue Raider Team Physician staff in 1979. By his estimation, Dr. Johns has missed less than 10 of the 250 Middle Tennessee regular season football games over the past 23 years.
Johns, who is a 1992 MT Distinguished Alumnus, served as part of the 1996 Olympic Medical Team in Atlanta, Ga., and has also been a delegate for the state of Tennessee at the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine conventions the last three years.
Staggs, a native of Nashville, was born on October 7, 1921. He graduated from Isaac Litton High School in 1941 and played football at the University of Mississippi for one year before fighting in World War II. After the war he played football at Middle Tennessee, where he earned his degree in 1948. He was a member of the first two of seven Volunteer State Athletic Conference championship teams under head coach Charles M. (Bubber) Murphy.
Staggs began his coaching career in Pulaski, Tenn., at Giles County High School in the spring of 1948. By the fall of 1948 he had moved to Lawrence County High School in Lawrenceburg. During the next 22 years he left an indelible mark on the history of Lawrenceburg and Middle Tennessee youngsters. In football he won 125 games, had 11 winning seasons and was Coach of the Year in 1964. In 16 basketball seasons he won 354 games, six district titles, four regional championships, appeared in the state tournament six times, and finished in the Final Four twice.
Nonetheless, Staggs' contribution to the Lawrenceburg youth was bigger than victories and championships. Staggs was the founder of the Lawrenceburg Little League Baseball Program and spent many summers serving as the director of the Summer Youth Program. Even after his retirement in 1974, Staggs remained active in Lawrence County. He created the Lawrence County High School Quarterback Club, and he was instrumental in having a new football stadium built at Lawrence County in 1982. In fact, until he showed public support for the new stadium the majority of people associated with Lawrence County sports opposed it. Today, the stadium bears his name.
He retired from coaching at Lawrence County in 1970 and finished his career in education at Tennessee Prep as a counselor. Married to the former Grace McRae, Staggs died in the fall of 1988.
Tickets for the Hall of Fame Induction Breakfast are $10 each and the event is open to the public. For further information on this year's Hall of Fame, please contact Jim Simpson at 615/898-5632.
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