The MEAC Hall of Fame is home to the conference's brightest, best and most innovative athletes, coaches, administrators and contributors. That puts the 2011 inductees in their comfort zone.
Their accomplishments helped build the conference's reputation for competitive excellence and raised its performance level.
The inductees - Earl Holmes, a football All-American at Florida A&M from 1992-95; Stephen Stewart, a two-time MEAC Player of the Year in men's basketball at Coppin State; Natalie White, who set the NCAA women's basketball career record for steals while playing at Florida A&M; James Phillips, who coached Morgan State to 13 MEAC wrestling championships, and Sanya Tyler, who coached Howard to five MEAC regular season women's basketball titles, nine tournament crowns and the conference's first appearance in the NCAA Tournament - will be honored at the MEAC Basketball Tournament during a brunch March 11 at the M.C. Benton Jr. Convention Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.
"Anytime you can make any Hall of Fame, it says a lot about you as an athlete and a person,'' says Holmes, whose words echoed the sentiments of other inductees. "I don't think any bad person makes the Hall.''
Holmes played 10 seasons in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions. He is currently Florida A&M's defensive coordinator. He says playing for the Rattlers and competing in the MEAC "was an honor and a privilege.''
"When I played the game I tried to make the best of each play,'' he says. "I never tried to rush anything. I let the game come to me.''
Holmes is one of the fiercest defensive players in MEAC history. He was a three-time All-MEAC selection and the 1995 MEAC and Black College Football Defensive Player of the Year. Holmes holds the Florida A&M career record with 509 total tackles (309 solo), and he set the conference single game record with 30 tackles against Southern University in the 1995 Heritage Bowl, which he says is the most memorable performance of his college career.
Holmes was nearly ejected from the game when he tackled a Southern ballcarrier out of bounds. It was his second personal foul penalty of the contest. The game officials huddled for several minutes and discussed Holmes' fate.
"I was sitting on the sideline saying to myself 'If they let me play, I'm going to make the other team pay,'' Holmes recalls. "I tackled him on the sideline. I thought it was before he went out of bounds. I might have hit him out of bounds. I'm not sure.''
From that point on, Holmes played like a man possessed.
"Everybody with the opposite color was the enemy,'' he says. "I was in a zone.
"I was never in it to injure anyone,'' he says. "I was trying to let them know I was there. But I played within the rules of game. I was there to inflict pain. That was my deal. It wasn't nothing cheap.''
Holmes also set school marks for solo tackles (103) and total tackles (171) his senior season.
Stewart, who hopes to get back into college coaching after taking the year off for health reasons, follows his older brother Larry - another former Coppin State basketball player - into the MEAC Hall of Fame. He says his selection is the culmination of the collective effort of everyone who supported him throughout his career, and a tribute to his brother.
"If it weren't for those people I wouldn't have made it to college,'' he says. "It's an honor for them and an honor me. But it's a lot deeper than that. It adds something special that (Larry) was able to accomplish so much and I came behind him. I wouldn't have been able to go Coppin State if I hadn't believed I could accomplish the same thing. His success raised the bar for me. He was a trailblazer. I was blessed. I didn't have to look at TV or in magazines for a hero. He was right here. He made my dreams possible. . He made me believe everything I was setting out to do I could accomplish. He always pushed me to be better than it thought I could be.''
Stewart, the 1993 MEAC Rookie of the Year, is No. 8 on the Coppin State all-time scoring list with 1,393 points and No. 7 on the all-time rebounding list with 546. He would rank even higher had he played four seasons (he sat out his freshman year as a partial qualifier). He says, however, his stats are unimportant.
"The main thing was winning,'' Stewart says.
The Eagles were 47-1 in regular season conference games during Stewart's career, and they reached the NCAA Tournament his rookie season and the NIT his senior season, where they upset Saint Joseph's. Stewart was the leading scorer with 19 points.
He says that was one of the most special moments in his career, not because of how well he played but because of what it meant to his teammates. A number of them were from Philadelphia; they had yearned to play one of the schools from their hometown but never got the opportunity until the NIT provided it.
"We got our wish and upset Saint Joe's. That showed a lot of character,'' says.
White says that after being inducted into to the Florida A&M Hall of Fame and having her number retired, she knew that it was only a matter of time before she would be enshrined in the MEAC Hall of Fame. Still, she says her selection is overwhelming.
"I was humbled by it,'' says White. "When I got the call, it was the first time started to reflect on my career. Before then (going into the Hall of Fame) was just another honor. This is the ultimate. I am very honored. During your career, you're just thinking about the next game, being a better teammate and leader. You're n the moment.''
White is currently an Account Executive/Dream Ambassadors Coordinator for the Atlanta Dream of the Women's National Basketball Association's (WNBA). She burst on the scene at Florida A&M by setting the NCAA freshman record for steals while leading the nation with 143 thefts. She led the nation again her junior and senior seasons.
White developed her knack for steals while playing point guard for Peach County High in Fort Valley, Ga., where her aunt was her coach and the team pressed full court for four quarters.
"I love defense,'' White says. Lot of people get steals because they happen to be in right position. "I am a student of the game. I thought one play ahead of the game. It's something I've always done. I always looked for ways to make my game stronger, to make up for my lack of size (she's 5-6). I always said 'what more can I contribute other than scoring and assists?'''
White was widely recruited coming out of high school, but her plan was to sign with Auburn after having attended camps there throughout high school. However, her plans changed after she visited Florida A&M, where she had a cousin enrolled in school.
"I knew instantly that was where I was supposed to be, not knowing that 16 year later I would be rewarded for that decision by being selected for the MEAC Hall of Fame,'' White says.
Phillips had no idea - literally and figuratively - what he was getting into when Morgan State basketball coach Talmadge Hill said to him ''You're the next wrestling coach.''
Phillips had played football at Morgan State and in the CFL, and at the time he was an assistant football coach at his alma mater. He was familiar with track and field and basketball, but he knew absolutely nothing about wrestling, never having coached the sport nor competed in it.
Still he took the job, albeit reluctantly.
"In those years older coaches didn't ask they told you,'' says Phillips, who lives in retirement in Leesburg, Fla. "I went and did what had to do.''
What Phillips did was become one of the most successful wrestling coaches in the nation. He guided the Bears to 13 MEAC championships and two NCAA Division II titles, developed 75 All-Americans and was MEAC Outstanding Coach 13 times. In 1984, he became the only coach from an HBCU to host an NCAA Eastern Wrestling Regional.
"I was too naïve to understand that wrestling is a tough sport,'' Phillips says of his introduction to wrestling. "What I did was, I got beat up a lot.''
Phillips scheduled the top programs - Iowa State, Michigan State, Clarion University - and he queried opposing coaches about the sport.
"I didn't have lot of pride. I asked,'' he says. "It took about six years of getting whupped and beat on.''
Bob Bubb, the legendary wrestling coach at Clarion, told Phillips he had to get an identity for his team. Phillips heeded Bubb's advice. The Bears mastered the art of being able to get off the bottom by standing up rather that sitting out.
"It was unique because it got us on our feet,'' Phillips says, "and our guys were super on their feet. The idea was to stay away from being on your back, where you could be pinned.''
Morgan State was one of only a few teams using the maneuver at that time.
Tyler compiled a laundry list of accomplishments as Howard's first full-time women's basketball coach. But she says the one that is most meaningful to her was Lady Bison in 1982 becoming the first MEAC team to compete in the NCAA Women's Tournament.
The Lady Bison played Long Beach State in the West Regional at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Tyler still has vivid memories of her team coming out for pregame warm-ups and seeing a banner for Howard University among the pennants identifying the participants that ringed the arena, and the sense of pride that it gave her.
"It was so exciting for not just us, the team and what it stood for,'' she says. "We were not local. We were national. We had an appeal that crossed the nation. After that we recruited players from California who saw Howard as legitimate option. It was a hell of a feeling to see your name in that ring and for others to see your name.''
Howard lost but the result of the contest in many ways was immaterial. After just two seasons at the helm Tyler was well on her way to accomplishing the goal that she set when she left her job as an X-Ray technician and went into coaching.
"I wanted Howard to be that HBCU could compete in any venue,'' she says. "We didn't want it to be a play games for a payday situation. We wanted to be among the elite programs and just happened to be black. When you're a long time coach you go along creating records and reaching milestones, it doesn't set in. I'm in awe of all we accomplished. There are a lot of real tangible points to be proud of. I feel I contributed to the growth of the sport.''
Tyler also coached the Lay Bison to NCAA Tournament appearances from 1996-98, and she became the first MEAC coach to defeat a team from the highly respected ACC when the Howard defeated North Carolina State.
"We gained the respect on and off court of the nation's finest coaches and elite programs,'' she says. "We competed on their court and I was able to play them at home. We did all of this prior to written contracts. We did it on a handshake. That says something about the character that we brought to the table.''
Tyler compiled a 298-266 record in 20 seasons at Howard.
"The greatest hardship was getting people who are not like-minded to see that athletics at HBCUs is prime real estate. This attitude of jocks and academics not being able to co-exist is a problem. If the upper-crust of schools can do it and do it well why can't we?''
Tyler is currently a manager in the radiology department at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and has been out of coaching since she left Howard in 2000. She coached an eight-year-old girls' team for a while and was a neutral observer officials for a junior college conference for a year.
"I missed (coaching) for a year,'' she says, adding that she is an avid women's basketball fan and attends numerous games in the Washington, D.C., area. "I am the consummate spectator now.''