VALDOSTA — Thursday night, the Valdosta High Sports Hall of Fame opened its doors to 17 of the best athletes to ever wear the black-and-gold.

The Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, held at the James H. Rainwater Convention Center on Thursday, honored an elite group of Valdosta High athletes.

The accomplishments of the Class of 2007 are staggering. In their playing careers, the 17 athletes combined for 11 All-American honors, 22 All-State selections and countless other honors. Fourteen of the 17 won at least one state championship during their time at Valdosta, and five played on at least one national championship football team. All but two were All-State at least once in their Wildcat careers.

This year’s Hall encompassed multiple decades of Wildcat excellence. There were athletes from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Each one had stories to tell about their playing days. And they all expressed pride in having played for Valdosta High School.

“The commitment to excellence you learned at Valdosta High School stays with you all of your life,” inductee Buck Belue said.

Belue was the first one to be inducted. He was the first player to start all four years at quarterback for Valdosta, and one of the most renowned players in the team’s history, before helping Georgia win the national championship in 1980. He also led the Valdosta baseball team to the state championship his senior year. Belue said becoming a Wildcat was a dream come true.

“I grew up in Valdosta watching Coach Bazemore’s teams win, and dreaming of the day when I’d play for Valdosta,” Belue recalled. “I thought that was as good as it got.”

Like most of the inductees, Belue also reiterated that his success would not have been possible without his teammates and coaches.

“How could you not succeed with an All-Star coaching staff, the best staff in high school football, and all those All-Star players?” Belue asked. “I was a lucky guy to have all that around me.”

The next inductee was another quarterback, John Bond. Bond is considered one of the more colorful players in Wildcat history, but also one of the best. In the 1979 playoffs, Bond’s famous 60-yard run down the Lowndes sideline gave the Wildcats a 24-21 victory.

Bond, who went on to be a four-year starter and an All-American at quarterback for Mississippi State, said it wasn’t easy to play for Valdosta’s football team. He remembered the day at camp in Twin Lakes that he was knocked out by a hard hit. The coaches and other players moved on to running sprints, leaving him laying there. Players were jumping over him while running.

“You learned a lot about toughness at Valdosta,” Bond admitted.

But he was proud to wear the Valdosta uniform.

“The move from Starkville, Miss. to Valdosta was the best move my dad ever made,” Bond said.

Running back Dana Brinson entered the Hall of Fame on his mother’s birthday. Brinson went on to play for Tom Osborne’s Nebraska Cornhuskers, and later the San Diego Chargers, but being a three-year starter for the Wildcats remains a big deal to him.

“My time with the Wildcats were some of the best years of my life,” Brinson said. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

One of the greatest female athletes in Valdosta history was basketball star Libby Carter Deavours. Deavours, described as a “deadly left-handed shooter,” still holds the school record with 45 points in a game, and scored 1,577 points in her career, an average of 25 a game. She led the Lady Wildcats to the 1957 state championship.

Deavours recalled beating Jeff Davis for the state championship, and the night she scored 42 points against Nashville, whose leading scorer had 58. She recently sat down and looked through her old scrapbook, and, “I realized I was pretty good.”

“For that wonderful trip down memory lane, thank you,” Deavours said.

Deavours was one of five inductees to join their fathers in the Valdosta Sports Hall of Fame. The plaques of the five second-generation Hall of Famers (Deavours, Lisa Jones Thomas, O’Neal, John Lastinger and Coleman Rudolph) have each been hung up next to their fathers’ plaques in the museum at Cleveland Field.

“My father was so nervous when he stood up here (in 1978),” Deavours said. “I’m as nervous as my father was when he went in. When I found out I was chosen for the Hall of Fame, I was speechless, delighted and grateful.”

Alton Hitson’s legacy will always be as the quarterback that won back-to-back state championships for Valdosta in 1989 and 1990, and as a winner, having gone 27-1-1 as a starter. He went on to play for Georgia Southern.

“I want to say thank you to the coaches,” Hitson said. “Coaches like (Al) Akins toughened me up for football, and for life.”

Lastinger was another quarterback with a reputation for being a winner, both at Valdosta, where he was the quarterback of Nick Hyder’s first state championship team in 1978, and at Georgia, where he led the Bulldogs to the Sugar Bowl and the Cotton Bowl in his two seasons as a starter. He realized how special it was to be a Valdosta Wildcat when he got to UGA.

“At Georgia, teammates would ask me about playing for Valdosta High School,” Lastinger recalled. “You realized this is a special place.

“Sports like football and baseball are team sports. I was so fortunate to play with all of these teammates.”

Paul McNeal was a starting lineman on three state championship teams and a state runner-up in four years with the Wildcats. He and fellow inductees Willie Webb and John Robert O’Neal were stars on coach Wright Bazemore’s 1950-53 Valdosta football teams. McNeal recalled how great those years were. Then he praised the 2007 Valdosta team for its vast improvement this season.

“Ladies and gentlemen, don’t give up on those Wildcats,” he said, to much applause.

Keith Middleton has given much of his life to Valdosta High football. Middleton played four years at linebacker for the Wildcats, before joining Belue and Lastinger on the 1980 national champion Georgia Bulldogs. Then in the late 1980’s, he returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach, and has spent almost 20 years there.

Middleton expressed tremendous gratitude for all the years he’d been a Wildcat.

“Man, I’m living the dream,” he said. “There’s not anything like being a Valdosta Wildcat on a Friday night, and nothing like being a Wildcat coach on a Friday night, either.

“As a little kid, I was proud that one day I would make it and play for the Valdosta Wildcats. Then it happened…. I thank Valdosta from the bottom of my heart.”

Foy Norwood is one of the few four-year starters in Valdosta football history, playing center and tackle. He played on state championship teams in 1960 and 1961 and a national championship team in 1962. After Thursday’s ceremony, Norwood found the team’s 1962 national championship trophy, and had pictures made of himself with it. He was a prep All-American in 1963.

“Sports has made me the man I am today,” Norwood said. “I am the first one in my family to graduate from college. I also got my master’s and my educational specialist degrees, and I met my wife, who was a cheerleader, in college. Then I coached and taught (for 34 years). All because of football. I never knew I could do all of this because of a kid’s game.”

Norwood revealed that he is battling colon cancer, but believes it’s almost gone.

“As I’ve battled colon cancer, I remember something Coach Bazemore and Coach Hyder told me,” he said. “If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it 100 times: ‘Never give up.’”

John Robert O’Neal was a standout running back and a member of one of Valdosta’s most successful athletic families. O’Neal’s grandfather had 21 descendants play for the Wildcats. He was also one of the fastest Wildcats, and played at Georgia Tech.

O’Neal still keeps a tooth on his key chain, a tooth that came out during a game, thanks to “a face-ful of foot.”

The only inductee that wasn’t on hand Thursday was longtime NFL kicker Todd Peterson, who is currently doing mission work in Bombay, India. Peterson’s father was there, however, and read a speech Peterson had prepared.

John Porter was the 1984 USA Today national Defensive Player of the Year for the national champion Wildcats. The former linebacker, who went on to play for Georgia Tech, kept his speech short, but made sure to express his joy at playing for the Wildcats.

“I have many memories I will cherish for a lifetime, and I thank you,” Porter said.

Gary Rowe was one of the finest defensive backs to play for Valdosta. His 14 interceptions in 1972 and 32 career interceptions at VHS are school records. He went on to star at Tennessee.

Rowe made a point of recognizing his coaches, telling them, “You all are our heroes, and one of the reasons we all wanted to be Wildcats.” He also told the audience, “Once you’re a Wildcat, you are always a Wildcat.”

Rowe also praised the 2007 Valdosta football team.

“To go from 1-9 last year to 8-2 this year, they are true champions,” he said.

Coleman Rudolph was an All-American defensive lineman at Valdosta and at Georgia Tech, and won national championships for both teams. He later played for the New York Giants and New York Jets.

“The opportunity here at Valdosta High School is better than any school in the country,” he said. “I’m thankful for the opportunity to be a Valdosta Wildcat.”

Rudolph also amused the audience with anecdotes about his father Jack, the legendary Valdosta defensive coordinator.

“My dad never has played a round of golf in his life. Yet he coached the golf team at Valdosta for 20 years,” Coleman pointed out, to much laughter. “My dad also didn’t learn how to drive a car until his late 20s, and still couldn’t drive a car with a manual transmission from one end of this room to the other. Yet for 20 years, he taught driver’s education at Valdosta High School.”

Greg Talley was one of Rudolph’s teammates on the 1986 national championship Wildcats, before going on to play quarterback at Georgia. Like Lastinger, Talley realized that being a Wildcat was a big deal when he got to UGA.

“When you told somebody you were from Valdosta, it gave you instant credibility, because of all that Valdosta had done,” Talley remembered. “I had so much pride in being from Valdosta, and I wanted so badly to play for Valdosta.

“We have a tradition worthy of (a Hall of Fame).”

Lisa Jones Thomas may have been Valdosta’s finest female track star. She was the leader of Valdosta’s first state championship girls track team, and ran the anchor leg of the first prep girls 4×100 relay team in the state of Georgia to break 50 seconds. She was twice an All-American at Valdosta.

Like the football program, the girls’ track team expected to win in those days.

“Defeat or failure was not an option,” Thomas recalled. “My mom and dad told me to give 110 percent in everything you do, and they always knew when I didn’t.”

The final Hall of Fame inductee was one of the smartest athletes to ever wear a Wildcat uniform, and also one of the most prolific winners. Dr. Willie Webb played on Valdosta football teams that went a combined 44-0-1, and on basketball teams that went 30-1. He also won three state championships in tennis.

Webb emphasized what a big deal high school sports is.

“I feel that playing high school sports is very important,” he said. “It will shape the rest of your life.”

Webb went from being Wright Bazemore’s quarterback to being his doctor. And Webb could never stand to disappoint his coach.

“One reason I didn’t throw in the towel in medical school and come back home to Valdosta was because I could never face Coach Bazemore and tell him that I failed,” Webb said.

Webb stayed in medical school, and more than 50 years after he last played for Valdosta, he’s still a fan of his alma mater.

“It’s still great to be a Valdosta Wildcat.”