Don January, left, and Billy Maxwell as college students. Photo courtesy of the University of North Texas Libraries.
Three of the nine athletes named to the Dallas ISD Athletics Hall of Fame class of 2021 are from Oak Cliff.
Don January, 92, was part of Sunset High School’s epic golf legacy. Here’s what The Advocate wrote about him last year:
With January on the team, Sunset won three straight city tournaments. He went on to what is now the University of North Texas, which won four national Division I NCAA titles in a row, from 1949-1952. As a pro, he won 10 PGA titles, including the championship in 1967. That came five years after he shot a 68 in the 1961 PGA Championship, losing by one stroke in a playoff to Jerry Barber, so he holds the record for the lowest losing score ever in an 18-hole playoff for a major tournament. January also won 22 Senior PGA tournaments and had a career in the golf-course design business. He’s still living and owns a home in Dallas.
Photo courtesy of the Kansas City Chiefs
Mike Livingston, 76, graduated from South Oak Cliff High School in 1964 and attended SMU, “where he broke most of Don Meredith’s passing records,” according to Wikipedia.
Here’s what DISD says about him:
He was the fourth quarterback selected in the 1968 NFL draft, going in the second round to the Kansas City Chiefs. During the 1969 season after injuries to two other quarterbacks, Livingston started six games – and won all six – in the Chiefs’ world championship season that eventually saw starter Len Dawson return to quarterback the team to a Super Bowl IV victory.
Michael Johnson’s gold shoe from the 1996 Olympics on display at Nike Town Honolulu, via Wikimedia Commons.
Michael Johnson, 54, captured the hearts of Americans in the summer of 1996, when he won two gold medals in the Olympic Games in Atlanta. The fastest man in the world, he sprinted in his iconic gold spikes and took the podium’s top step in the 200 and 400 meters, and he’s the only male athlete in history to win both of those races in the same Olympics. He’d attended Baylor University and also won gold in the 400 meters at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 4×400 relay at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. He graduated from Skyline High School but grew up in Oak Cliff.
He returned his relay gold medal after it was revealed in the BALCO case that his teammate had used performance-enhancing drugs, before the Olympic committee stripped the team of those medals. Johnson himself was never accused of doping.
Here’s the full list of DISD hall of fame inductees, which includes 11-time NBA All-Star and recent Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Chris Bosh as well as WNBA star Andrea Riley, who both went to Lincoln High School in South Dallas.
