Sherry Raney White, a three-time All-America selection during her basketball career at Arkansas Tech University, was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame (ASHOF) during a banquet at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock on March 29.
White and her teammates of the late 1970s and early 1980s were responsible for creating the legend of Golden Suns basketball that endures to this day.
A product of Bruno-Pyatt High School, White enrolled at Arkansas Tech in 1978 and led the Golden Suns to four AIAW conference championships and a four-year combined overall record of 102-15 under head coach Jim Yeager.
White ranks second in school history in career scoring with 2,248 points, third in career scoring average at 19.7 points per game and tied for third in rebounds with 842. She and Anissa Pounds (2014-17) are the only four-time all-conference selections in ATU women’s basketball history.
The Suns won 20 or more games in each of White’s four seasons at Tech. It was the beginning of one of the most remarkable streaks in the history of college basketball. The Golden Suns would go on to win 20 or more games in 25 consecutive seasons from 1978-79 through 2002-03.
White pursued a career in coaching following her graduation from Arkansas Tech.
She has coached five state championship girls’ basketball teams and is currently the head girls’ basketball coach at Russellville High School. She led the Lady Cyclones to a state runner-up finish in 2015.
White is the 23rd individual with ties to Arkansas Tech to gain induction into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. The others, listed with the sport they are most associated with and the year in which they were inducted, are: John Tucker (football, 1962), Wilson Matthews (football, 1971), Raymond “Rabbit” Burnett (football, 1974), Charles “Foot” Clement (football, 1975), Eddie Meador (football, 1978), Sam Hindsman (basketball, 1981), Deward Dopson (basketball, 1982), Aubrey “Cobb” Fowler (football, 1982), Ragon Kinney (boxing, 1985), W. Howard Pearce (football, 1986), Raymond Peters (football, 1996), Firman Bynum (football, 1998), Bill Stancil (football, 1998), Clyde Horton (track and field, 2000), Joe Foley (basketball, 2002), John Widner (basketball, 2003), J.P. Lovelady (basketball, 2005), E.C. O’Neal (basketball, 2006), Kenny Saylors (basketball, 2009), Bill “Sleepy” Curtis (football, 2011), Wyn Norwood (golf, 2013) and Stephanie Strack Mathis (basketball, 2014).
In addition, the 1991-92 and 1992-93 Golden Suns NAIA national championship basketball teams entered the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame as a group during a special banquet at Tucker Coliseum in 2016.