The Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame has announced the honorees for the 2023 Achievement Awards, with Josh Heupel, Hany Mukhtar, MTSU Women’s Basketball, Hendon Hooker, Danny White and more topping the list.

The Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame previously announced the 2023 induction class. The star- studded list of inductees includes Eric Berry, Keith Bulluck, Mike Fisher, Tim Harris, John Henderson, Tianna Madison, the late Carl R. Moore, Teresa Lawrence Phillips, Zach Randolph, Loren Roberts, Les Robinson and Stephen B. Smith.

Full list of 2023 Achievement Awards honorees:

Tennesseans of the Year, Presented by the Tennessee Lottery – Josh Heupel, Danny White and Donde Plowman

University of Tennessee football saw a return to prominence this past season, including a thrilling win over Alabama, and a No. 1 overall ranking in the College Football Playoff Rankings, the team’s first No. 1 ranking since the 1998 National Championship season.

Chancellor Plowman’s role in the hiring of White, and White’s hiring of Coach Heupel were the catalysts to a resurgence in football on Rocky Top. The impact it had on the University of Tennessee was felt in fan excitement and economics. Over 1,500 students applied to Tennessee in the two days following the team’s win over Alabama in October, nearly doubling the previous year’s cycle.

David Williams Significant Historical Achievement Award, Presented by Alexander Thompson Arnold, PLLC – 1958 Oak Ridge Football Team

The 1958 Oak Ridge Football team was the first school in Tennessee to be named National Champions. Seven members of that team were recruited to SEC schools, and the undefeated Wildcats won the mythical state of Tennessee Championship. On the 65th anniversary of the championship team, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame will honor their contributions to sports of the state with the David Williams Significant Historical Achievement Award.

Pat Summitt Lifetime Achievement Award, Presented by Curb Records – Jerry “The King” Lawler

Jerry “The King” Lawler, a life-long Tennessean and a graduate of Treadway High School in Memphis, is one of the most recognizable names in professional wrestling. Since his debut in the squared circle in 1970, Lawler’s contributions to the industry have included not only his work as a wrestler and a commentator–where he teamed up with Jim “J.R.” Ross to form the most well- known commentary duo ever–but as a company owner and promotor. Along the way, he competed in the National Wrestling Alliance, Continental Wrestling Association, the American Wrestling Association, World Class Championship Wrestling, United States Wrestling Association, New Japan Pro-Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment.

Lawler is also a musician, actor, author, artist and owner of King Jerry Lawler’s Memphis BBQ Company in Cordova. He is a member of the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum. Lawler was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007.

Professional Team of the Year – Memphis Grizzlies

The Grizzlies posted a 51-31 record and earned the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference entering the 2022-2023 NBA Playoffs. The Grizzlies won the Southwest Division, capturing the division in back-to-back seasons. The 51 wins are the third most in franchise history.

Male Professional Athlete of the Year – Hany Mukhtar, Nashville SC

Mukhtar was named the 2022 Landon Donovan MLS MVP after receiving 48.03 percent of the total votes. He led the league with 34 goal contributions (23 goals, 11 assists), which tied for the fifth-most in a single MLS season. He earned the league’s honor of the 2022 MLS Golden Boot after scoring a league-high 23 goals. Mukhtar became the first Nashville SC player to win the awards. He also accounted for 44.2 percent of Nashville’s goals (23 of 52) in 2022, which was the highest percentage in MLS.

Female Amateur Team of the Year – MTSU Women’s Basketball

Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) posted a 28-5 record and dominated Conference USA on their way to the program’s 20th Regular-Season Championship and 17th Conference Tournament Championship. The Lady Raiders reached the postseason for the 19th consecutive year and earned their 20th berth in the NCAA Tournament. The 28 wins were third most in program history. They were one of just 16 Division I teams with 25 or more victories. MSTU won 16 straight during one stretch, the fifth-longest winning streak in C-USA history.

Female Amateur Athlete of the Year, Presented by the TSSAA – Mya Jones, University of Memphis Soccer

Jones was named to the All-South Region First Team after finishing the season with a team-high 20 points, while netting nine goals and assisting on two. She posted three game-winning goals. An American Athletic Conference First-Team selection, Jones was instrumental in pacing Memphis to a historic season in which they won the American Athletic Conference and reached the third round of the NCAA Championships.

Male Amateur Team of the Year – University of Tennessee Baseball

Tennessee earned the nation’s No. 1 ranking and had one of the best seasons in college baseball history, setting records for victories (57) and home runs (158) while also winning the SEC regular season and tournament titles for the first time since 1995. The Vols season ended in the Super Regionals as well as gained the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history.

Male Amateur Athlete of the Year, Presented by the TSSAA – Hendon Hooker, Tennessee Football

Hooker earned SEC Offensive Player of the Year honors by the Associated Press and SEC coaches, while finishing fifth in voting for the Heisman Trophy. He received 17 first-place votes and recorded 226 points during Heisman voting, and became the first Vol to earn SEC Player of the Year since Peyton Manning in 1997. Hooker was also a finalist for the Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Award, Manning Award and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award. He produced 3,565 yards of total offense, completing 229-of-329 passes (69.6) percent for 3,135 yards with 27 touchdowns and only two interceptions, while rushing 104 times for 430 yards and five scores on the ground. Hooker became the fifth Vol in program history to pass for more than 3,000 yards in a season, and claimed five wins over opponents ranked in the AP Top 25 at the time of the meeting.

The honors will be formally presented as part of the 2023 Banquet, presented by the Tennessee Titans on July 22 at the Omni Nashville Downtown. For more information, click here.

As the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series celebrates 25 years, approximately 24,000 registered runners took part in the 2023 St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series Nashville, providing participants a running tour of Music City. The Sports Credential spoke with St. Jude Rock ‘N’ Roll Running Series Nashville Race Director Erika Larsen ahead of the event. To read, click here.

Saturday (April 22)’s St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series Nashville Marathon also saw elite runners take to the course. It was Garang Madut from Dayton, Ohio with a time of 2:27:06 and Sarah Higgins from Greenwood, Indiana winning in a time of 2:43:54 coming home victorious in the men’s and women’s races, respectively.

“I knew the course from the map, but I wasn’t super sure about it. I knew it was going to fun because of all the bands. I am a big country music fan and just moved to Indiana from California and Nashville is really close to Indiana, so I had been looking forward to coming here. I had to try to keep my pace because the bands made me speed up and I was like, ‘Whoa, chill out Sarah’,” says Higgins. “I was hoping to get top three. I was just going to run my race and see what happens. The course was definitely flatter than I expected it to be because I heard Nashville was hilly. There were still inclines and stuff, but nothing like a crazy hill that you had to work really hard to climb. You couldn’t have asked for better weather.”

“Scott Wietecha is a big inspiration. It feels good to come out and win it. I grew up here, my parents immigrated from South Sudan. It’s my hometown race—It’s good to come back,” says Madut. “I took the lead from the get-go. I went out, I was like, I’m just going to see who goes with me. “My goal was to win this. I was going to do whatever it took to win it.”

Patrick Rizzo from Kingston Springs, Tennessee with a time of 1:07:41 and Robin Pomeroy from Verona, Wisconsin finishing in 1:21:40 were the male and female overall winners of the St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series is a best-in-class road running series ‘bringing fun to the run’ through music, entertainment and community immersion all combining in Nashville to provide an unforgettable experience. With a distance for everyone, runners and walkers hailed from all over to take on a running tour of Music City. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series Nashville brings participants through the city’s most iconic neighborhoods with rich history around every corner, passing many iconic landmarks including Broadway’s honky-tonks, Dolly Parton’s recording studio, the Country Music Hall of Fame and many more all before ending the event at the finish line at Nissan Stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans.

For nine events including St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Nashville, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is the official benefiting charity partner of the St. Jude Rock ‘n‘ Roll Running Series. Thanks to the over 1,500 St. Jude Heros and the generous support of the Nashville community, people across the region and country that St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital continues to lead the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. To learn more, visit www.stjude.org.

“We are deeply grateful to our Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series partners and every person who was part of this year’s St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series Nashville—especially our St. Jude Heroes, who trained with a purpose in support of this lifesaving mission,” says Richard C. Shadyac Jr., President & CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “Truly, Music City came together this weekend to help accelerate research and treatment for kids with cancer. Our finish line will be crossed when no child dies from cancer, no matter where they happen to be born.”

Several local bands, including the Less Kerr and the Bayou Band, U.S. Airforce Band, Hype Creek and many more performed live on band stages along the route all before Greg Pratt, Angie Rey and Runaway June took the stage at the Finish Line Stage outside Nissan Stadium as the Encore Entertainment.

The annual St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series is hitting the streets of Nashville this weekend and participants, friends, families and fans can get involved and enjoy the expanded and new festivities.

People from all over travel to Music City to participate in this race every year, making it a destination spot for those who run for fun and those who take it a bit more seriously. Due to the event’s growth each year, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series team, lead by Race Director Erika Larsen, are continuously working to make the race weekend an event people will want to mark on their calendar.

This year, there will be more ways to get involved without running in Saturday’s marathon and there will be plenty of food, beveragse and live music, including performances all throughout the runners route. The Sports Credential sat down with Larsen to discuss what’s new at this year’s Running Series, her work as Race Director, the event’s growth and its charity work with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The Sports Credential: Tell me a little bit about your background. How you got involved with the marathon here in Nashville?

So in college, at Syracuse University, I studied sport management, and I had to create a completed internship. I actually completed the internship with The IRONMAN Group who owns the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series now, and I worked my way up. I started as an intern, got hired in the Customer Service department and worked in that for a couple of years. Through those years, I gained more operational experience and realized that I loved planning and wanted to do more of it. During the acquisition of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series, I was relocated to Nashville, and everything just kind of fell into place from there. I’m really happy to be where I am now.

The Sports Credential: So talk to me about what you’ve been doing with the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon over these last few years, and how it’s changed and how it’s grown. What can people, both participants and those who want to attend, expect from this year compared to last couple years?

So obviously, we dealt with COVID, just like everyone else, and things slow down. This year, 2023, we feel like we’re finally back to pre COVID normality, if you will, expecting 25,000 runners, more engagement, more volunteers. It’s just, it’s really feels normal again. As for the changes this year, we’re moving our Expo location, or Health & Fitness Expo, which is Thursday and Friday before the race. This year, it’s being held at the National Municipal Auditorium and Musicians Hall of Fame. Whereas in years past, and normally we’re at Music City Center. So, I think this year, it’s a really cool change. The venue ties in really well with our music, which is one of our core values here, tying in music with running.

The courses year over year, since I’ve been involved, have remained relatively the same. We start downtown on Eighth and Broadway. The marathon course this year has changed slightly, we’re going to go back up to Metro Center but the change here, which we haven’t done before, is we’re going to utilize the Cumberland River Greenway to come back into town. It’s flatter, so those runners will see a third less elevation gain, which is huge for marathon runners. And then the finish line has changed, it’s still outside of Nissan Stadium, but the location at the stadium is different. We’re going to be on the South Side closer to the pedestrian bridge. When you finish, you’re going to see the Nashville Skyline right in front of you, our concert beer garden, all those fun things will be in Lot R (at Nissan Stadium) right there. So really just a big open welcoming space, with easy access back to downtown for everyone. So, I think we’re having some really positive changes this year.

The Sports Credential: Who are the types of people that participate in the marathon? Is it more so people who like to run for charity or is it typically people who take the competition more seriously? What can we expect from the actual people running and the participants?

I’m really glad you asked that because here at Rock ‘n’ Roll Nashville, we pride ourselves on having a distance for everybody, and when I say everyone, I mean everyone. We have the marathon, half marathon, 10k, 5k, a one mile, kids race and even a dog race. So, you can get involved no matter what your background is, if you want to just come out and have fun or if you want to qualify for the Boston Marathon. We have it all, so I think that’s a really awesome thing here. You can come out and take it super seriously and have a great race, or you can come out and walk around and a hula hoop for the 5k. I’ve seen it all. I think it’s really really great. I’ve seen people walking in tutus, hula hooping, just having a good time. We really welcome everybody.

The Sports Credential: It seems like every year, you see more and more people from around the country and around the world participating. How have you seen that grow, attracting more and more international and national runners to this event, making it more than just a Nashville event?

I’m sure you know, Nashville is a bucket list city and we bring the majority of our runners from out of state, which is huge. Nashville itself as a city is super popular and I think people see that we basically cover all the popular spots, neighborhoods, monuments and landmarks with our course. I think it’s a great way to get involved in seeing the city as well as experience what Nashville is. We have over 25 bands and DJs on the course, bringing Music City to our course entertainment. So, all of that encompasses what we do here in Nashville and I think that really appeals to a lot of people who’ve never been here. It creates that bucket list city kind of feel.

The Sports Credential: Can you walk me through the process of how the money gets to St. Jude? Do people just donate? Do the runners get sponsors, portions of the beer sales and stuff like? I’m really curious about how that process works.

So people can obviously make donations to St. Jude directly. The main source of donations and fundraising comes from what we call St. Jude Heroes. What it means to be a St. Jude Hero is you sign up, and commit to fundraising a certain amount. There’s different tiers and you can choose what amount you want to commit to, and that is in lieu of an entry fee. So the heroes that register with St. Jude, that’s where the money comes from. I think we’re on track to raise over half a million dollars this year at this event alone, which is absolutely incredible. St. Jude is a great partner, and I’m super proud to have them as part of this event.

The Sports Credential: In terms of this year’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon, what are you most excited about?

That’s a hard question. I think I’m most excited to see our participant numbers, larger than they have been in the past couple of years. I’m excited for the new changes we have made with music on the course. We’re bringing some really cool elements like party buses, different kinds of music DJs out there, that will be really cool. I’m really excited to see the runners cross the finish line at our new location at Nissan Stadium. I think it’s really just going to create a great backdrop, great atmosphere for our concert and beer garden. Also, for people to just hang out and enjoy Nashville post race. It’s a really hard question to answer. There’s so many different things I’m excited to see come to life, but those are the ones I’m probably most excited about.

To learn more about 2023 St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Nashville coming up this weekend between April 22-23, head to the official website.

April is an interesting month for sports, especially for Nashville sports. The hockey regular season is coming to an end with the beginning of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Nashville SC’s season is in full swing and the NFL Draft will take the Titans world by storm as all eyes turn to Ran Carthon and Mike Vrabel to help rebuild this team for success next season.

The Predators are still technically alive in the playoff hunt with just three games left this season. Nashville is three points out of the second Wild Card spot with 88 points, just one point behind Calgary Flames who host the Preds tonight (April 10) in what will be a determining game for the NHL Playoff picture. The NHL Playoffs begin on April 17 and Preds fans will have to wait to see if this team can clinch again. The Predators finish the regular season hosting Minnesota on Thursday, April 13 and Colorado on Friday, April 14.

Also this month, Nashville SC will host four home games, including matches against reigning MLS champions LAFC, rival Atlanta United and will be hosting USL club San Antonio FC in the third round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. The Boys in Gold are currently 3-2-2, with a draw most recently against Toronto FC. Their defense supported by Shaq Moore, Walker Zimmerman and goalkeeper Joe Willis have been amazing but their offense is struggling to create scoring opportunities.

NSC faces LAFC and Atlanta United on April 22 and April 29 respectively. They will face San Antonio at GEODIS Park in the U.S. Open Cup on Wednesday, April 26.

To end the month, NFL and Titans fans will be putting all of their attention on the 2023 NFL Draft between April 27-29 in Kansas City. Tennessee currently holds the No. 11 overall pick but there are rumors that the Titans are considering trading up to try and draft a quarterback. As of right now, it looks like their focus is on offensive lineman, but just like what happened last draft, anything can happen—especially with a new general manager.

For more events and games, head to The Sports Credential calendar.

APRIL 10
Nashville Predators at Calgary Flames
Calgary, Alberta

APRIL 14-16
Vanderbilt Baseball vs. South Carolina at Hawkins Field
Nashville, Tennessee

APRIL 13
Nashville Predators vs. Minnesota Wild at Bridgestone Arena
Nashville, Tennessee

APRIL 14
Nashville Predators vs. Colorado Avalanche at Bridgestone Arena
Nashville, Tennessee

APRIL 21-23
Vanderbilt Baseball at the University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee

APRIL 22
Nashville SC vs. LAFC at GEODIS Park
Nashville, Tennessee

APRIL 22-23
2023 St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series
Nashville, Tennessee

APRIL 26
Nashville SC vs. San Antonio FC at GEODIS Park in Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
Nashville, Tennessee

APRIL 27-29
2023 NFL Draft begins
Kansas City, Missouri

APRIL 29
Nashville SC vs. Atlanta United at GEODIS Park
Nashville, Tennessee

APRIL 28-30
Vanderbilt Baseball vs. the University of Kentucky at Hawkins Field
Nashville, Tennessee