Front Page ReleaseÉ31st class enters hall of fame - Guilford College

GUILFORD COLLEGE ADDS SIX TO ATHLETICS HALL OF FAME

Greensboro, NC (02/01/02) -- Six former student-athletes and coaches comprise the 31st class to be inducted into the Guilford College Athletics Hall of Fame February 2. The inductees will be honored at halftime of Guilford's men's basketball game versus Bridgewater and formally inducted at a banquet Saturday evening in the Ragan-Brown Field House.

Ray Alley, Kendall Buckner '65, Julie Tupper Cummings '86, Tim Diamond '86, Keith King '85 and Seth Macon '40 will enter the Hall. Guilford inducted its first class into the Athletics Hall of Fame in 1971.

Alley coached men's soccer and men's tennis at Guilford from 1975-88 and has the school's most coaching victories in both sports. His men's soccer teams went 50-36-3 in five seasons and won a school-record 17 games in 1976. The 1976 team scored a school-record 109 goals, the most by any college soccer team in the country that year. Alley earned the Carolinas Conference Coach of the Year Award in 1975 and was the NAIA District 26 Coach of the Year in 1977.

Alley's tennis teams won over 350 games in 23 seasons at High Point and Guilford. He spent 13 years as the Quakers' tennis coach and turned the program into a national power. Alley helped make Guilford a regular participant in the NAIA National Tournament and coached four All-Americans. The Catawba, NC, native garnered nine District 26 Coach of the Year honors and eight Carolinas Conference Coach of the Year commendations. He was the 1975 NAIA National Tennis Coach of the Year while coaching at High Point in 1975. A 1966 High Point graduate, Alley was inducted into the North Carolina Soccer Hall of Fame January 5. He resides in Greensboro and publishes Southern Soccer Scene and North Carolina Tennis Today magazines.

Buckner led Guilford with a 5-2 pitching record in 1964 and earned All-Carolinas Conference honors as a junior and senior. A Greensboro Daily News All-State selection and team captain in 1965, he compiled a .264 career batting average with 34 runs scored and 30 runs batted in. Buckner had an 11-8 career pitching record and helped the Quakers to 43 wins in his four seasons. When not on the mound, the four-year letter winner played outfield and first base for coach Stuart Maynard's teams. He was a member of the Monogram Club and an active intramurals participant. Originally from Siler City, NC, Buckner teaches at North Myrtle Beach High School and resides in Mullins, SC.

Cummings (right) compiled a 97-29 singles record for coach Gayle Currie's tennis teams from 1983-86. She earned All-America honors by reaching the quarterfinals of the 1985 NAIA National Tournament and was an honorable mention All-American pick the following year. Guilford went 70-14 and finished no lower than eighth at the NAIA National Tournament in Cummings' four seasons. She earned All-District 26 and All-Carolinas Conference honors as Guilford's number-one singles player from 1984-86. Cummings won the NAIA District 26 Singles' Tournament as a freshman and captured the Carolinas Conference Player of the Year Award in 1984 and 1986. She finished the 1984 season ranked fourth in NAIA and guided Guilford to NAIA District 26 titles from 1984-86. A 1982 graduate of Huntington (NY) High School, Cummings received the 1985 Nereus C. English Athletic Leadership Award, Guilford's highest athletic honor. She resides in Norfolk, VA, with her husband and two children and works as a sales/account executive for Teagle & Little Printing Company.

Diamond ranks second in Guilford men's lacrosse history with 174 career goals and stands fourth with 196 points. He led the Quakers in scoring from 1983-85 and placed third among Division III goal-scoring leaders in 1985. A winner of Guilford's 1986 English Award, Diamond earned All-America honors as a senior and was an honorable mention All-America selection in 1985. He scored a career-high 56 goals to help coach Geoff Miller's team to a school-record 11 wins and a number-six national ranking in 1986. One of only two Guilford players with multiple 50-goal seasons, Diamond's 56 tallies rank third on Guilford's single-season goals chart. He represented the Quakers in the 1986 North-South All-Star game. The Boca Raton, FL, native now resides in Gulf Stream, FL, where he serves as the vice president of Delray Ocean Estates.

King (right) played basketball for the Quakers, but enjoyed his most success as a golfer. One of Guilford's 10 two-time golf All-Americans, he holds the school record for lowest 18-hole score (66). King shot his first 66 in 1984 to win the Sam Houston State Invitational in the Bahamas, his lone collegiate individual title. He also shot 66 in the opening round of the 1985 NAIA National Tournament where he finished second with a 291, the eighth-best 72-hole score in Guilford history. King's efforts helped coach Jack Jensen's Quakers place second at the 1985 national tournament.

King's 76.498 career stroke average ranks eighth in school history. An All-District 26 and All-Carolinas Conference honoree in 1983 and 1985, he has three of Guilford's 30-lowest season averages. On the hardcourts, King averaged 10.4 points and 5.5 rebounds per game in two-and-a-half seasons. He lives in his hometown of Virginia Beach, VA, with his wife and two children and works as the head golf professional at the Cavalier Golf and Yacht Club. King remains an active golfer and has won numerous Middle Atlantic Professional Golf Association (MAPGA) tournaments, including the 1990 MAPGA Tournament of Champions.

Macon played two football seasons under coach Block Smith at Guilford despite no prior gridiron experience. Macon, who played soccer and baseball, but not football at Providence High School in Randolph County, caught Smith's eye while hauling trash on campus at the end of his sophomore year. After learning the game as a junior, Macon started every game at left guard as a senior and helped the Quakers to a 6-3 record in 1939.

Macon is being inducted into the Hall for his outstanding service to the athletics department and the college. He retired in 1984 after serving as vice president of the Jefferson-Pilot Corporation and is well known as a civic leader in Greensboro. Macon chaired Guilford's Board of Trustees from 1980-88 during his 28-year tenure on the board. He was one of three co-chairs in Guilford's Our Time in History capital campaign, which recently surpassed its $50-million goal 11 months ahead of schedule. In 1988, Guilford trustees and other friends contributed over $100,000 to name the terrace entrance to the college's library after Macon and his wife Hazel '41. The recipient of Guilford's 1978 Distinguished Alumnus Award, Macon lives in Greensboro and is a member of the Rotary Club of Greensboro and First Baptist Church. .

This year's class raises Guilford's Athletics Hall of Fame membership to 177. Past inductees include NBA stars M.L. Carr '73 and World B. Free '76, major-league baseball players Ernie Shore '13, Rick Ferrell '28 and Tom Zachary '18.