Watch the Ceremony on Fox Sports Arizona:
- Fri., June 14 at 5 p.m.
- Sun., June 16 at 10:30 p.m.
- Wed., June 19 at 5:30 p.m.
- Fri., June 21 at 4 p.m.
- Tues., June 25 at 2:30 p.m.
The 43rd Arizona Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, will honored professional golfer Heather Farr, USA Olympic diver Michele Mitchell, NBA All-Star Lafayette “Fat” Lever, and Arizona business leader and nationally recognized entrepreneur Karl Eller.
The event, expected to draw more than 800 attendees, was held Thursday, May 9 at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, in the new Virginia G. Piper Theater.
Each year, the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame honors athletes, coaches, administrators and others who have made significant contributions to sports in our state. This year’s honorees include:
Phoenix-born Heather Farr is receiving the PRSC award posthumously after dying of cancer in 1993. She was a member of the National High School Sports Hall of Fame and played in her first-ever LPGA event at age 14. Farr was a three-time All-American golfer at Arizona State University and joined the LPGA tour at the age of 20, at the time, the youngest woman ever to do so.
Dr. Michele Mitchell is a Scottsdale native, University of Arizona four-time All-American athlete and two-time U.S. Olympic diving silver medalist. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1995 and today serves as the diving coach at University of Arizona where she earned her doctorate degree in 2007. She is a four-time U.S. Olympic Committee Athlete of the Year honoree.
A native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Lafayette Lever attended Arizona State University and was a first round draft pick (11th) by the Portland Trailblazers. He was considered one of the NBA’s best point guards of the 80’s and ranks sixth all time in career triple doubles. Lever was a two-time NBA All-Star and is one of only three players in NBA history to record 15-plus points, rebounds and assists in a single playoff game.
Karl Eller moved to Tucson at an early age, from Chicago, and attended the University of Arizona where he played football and basketball. Over the years he has had an illustrious business career, and in 1968, he became a founding investor of the Phoenix Suns. After hiring away an assistant coach from the Chicago Bulls, he named the young man, Jerry Colangelo, as the team’s first general manager. In 1971 he helped establish the Fiesta Bowl, and in 1988 helped attract the NFL’s Cardinals from St. Louis to Arizona. Eller is also well-known for his wide-ranging business acumen and success within the outdoor advertising industry, for which he was inducted into the American Advertising Federations’ Advertising Hall of Fame. In 1999, Arizona named its business college the Eller College of Management.
