1999

Arriving in Albuquerque from Boonville, Mo., Bernard E. “Gig” Brummell played basketball and baseball for the Lobos even though he was not recruited in either sport.  He came with his family after graduating from a small Missouri high school.  Brummell quickly found a home in New Mexico.

A three-year letterman in basketball from 1959-61, Brummell was team captain in 1959 when he led the team in scoring.  He was probably better in baseball, earning three letters and all-conference honors as a pitcher.  Brummell signed a professional contract with the Albuquerque Dukes, then an affiliate of the Kansas City Athletics.  An arm injury cut short his pro aspirations, but there were still plenty of opportunities on the horizon.

Not only was Brummell a fine athlete, but he was also one of the best-liked students on campus.  While earning his degree, Brummell was active in student government.  He was sophomore class president and president of the Student Lettermen’s Club.

Brummell took the leadership skills he had learned from playing sports and the education he had acquired from UNM and parlayed them to his subsequent career in business.  In 1974, he moved to Dean Witter (and eventually Morgan Stanley Dean Witter).  As branch manager, Brummell opened and managed eight offices in New Mexico and El Paso.  Among the 400 branches nationwide, the Albuquerque parent branch ranked in the top 10.  His firm was recognized as one of the top five Morgan Stanley Dean Witter branch offices in the U.S., as well as the No. 1 branch in the Southwest for nine consecutive years.

Brummell has contributed a tremendous amount to the community, serving on numerous boards and in service and church organizations.

Charlotte Stevens Ferguson is the fourth female athlete – and the sixth woman – inducted into the UNM Athletic Hall of Honor.  Her mentor, Dr. Frances McGill, professor emeritus of UNM’s Health, Physical Education and Recreation Department, dubbed Ferguson “the most outstanding female athlete of her generation at UNM.”

Ferguson was born in Borger, Texas, in 1936, and came to UNM bay way of the Panama Canal Zone where she lived during and after World War II.  She graduated from Albuquerque High in 1954.

From 1954-58 at a time when there was no organized competition of women’s sports on college campuses, Ferguson set a standard for UNM undergraduate women that may never be duplicated: seven athletic letters in seven sports (basketball, softball, volleyball, field hockey, badminton, tennis and swimming). She was also the president, captain and choreographer of UNM’s 36-woman synchronized swimming team, the “Waterlous,” and the Lobos’ public exhibition troupe, “The Synchronettes,” which she founded.

Her teaching credentials in seven subjects equaled her versatility as a multi-sport athlete.  Membership in the administrative faculty at Pepperdine University culminated her career.

Professor of health, physical education and recreation for more than three decades, Charlotte Piper was UNM’s first swimming coach.  She also pioneered the field of adaptive aquatics for special populations in New Mexico, and was the first woman to chair the UNM Athletic Council.

After graduating from Baker (Kansas) University, Charlotte taught at UNM as a part-time physical education instructor.  She taught at UNM when women had to wear skirts to competition, athletes had to buy their own red swim suits and travel days and nights with practically no budget for motels to get to meets.  Times have sure changed!

Piper formed the swim team in 1957 when UNM competed in the Intermountain Conference for College Women’s Physical Education.  She was heavily involved with numerous organizations for the advancement of women’s sports.  In 1973, Piper served as team leader and assistant swimming coach of the United States delegation at the World University Games in Moscow in which four UNM swimmers competed, including Olympic golf medalist Cathy Carr.

Community outreach was also important to Piper.  She did fund-raising for the Albuquerque Zoo, served on the city’s Therapeutic Recreation Board, worked as an official for the Senior Olympics and was a member of the Board of Directors for the inaugural New Mexico State Games.

Charlotte Piper’s contributions to UNM athletics, to higher education and to human resources and community development are legion.

H.L. “Buster” Quist the Lobo athlete brought honor to UNM as its first track and field All-American.  Quist the student brought honor to UNM as a Rhodes Scholar nominee.

Throwing the javelin for the Lobo track team, Quist was the undefeated Skyline Conference champion from 1957-59.  He finished second at the NCAA Championships in 1958 and 1959 with heaves of more than 238 feet.  Besides participating in track, Quist also found time to play football, baseball and ski at UNM.  And, he graduated with honors in History. 

His international honors included national AAU competition against Japan and Russia, gold medalist at the Pan American Games and nomination for the Sullivan Award, given to the nation’s top amateur athlete.  Quist twice (1960 and 1964) set his sights on making the U.S. Olympic team, but fell short each time.

Quist began making working in the life insurance business in 1960.  He worked for his father then opened his own branch office for a major insurance company.  In 1969, he formed his own company, Insurance Consultants Limited.

When his Olympic dreams failed, Quist bought a set of golf clubs and worked his way to a 3 handicap.  From 1968-74, he hosted the Buster Quist Invitational in Albuquerque.

Poe Corn was born Jan. 12, 1909, in Roswell, N.M., the 19th of 20 children.  After attending the New Mexico Military Institute, he was a three-sport letterman at UNM in basketball, football and track.  He graduated in 1932 with a degree in Education.

Corn was the head football, basketball and track coach at Roswell High from 1932-49.  His football teams compiled a 102-57-12 record while his basketball squads were 207-93 over than span.  In 1938, Corn started women’s physical education in Roswell Public Schools.

From 1948 until his death at age 63 on July 31, 1972, Corn served in a variety or roles as the Roswell Public Schools’ Activities Director, director of athletics and physical education director.

Corn received numerous accolades for his accomplishments, including UNM’s James F. Zimmerman Award.

As a Lobo gymnast and team captain from 1967-71, Mark Dennett “Stormy” Eaton established an extraordinary record of four consecutive WAC individual titles in floor exercise and contributing to three conference team championships.  During his junior season, Eaton took second in both the floor exercise and trampoline.  Oh yeah, he was also a perfect 4.0 student in Drama and Education.

As a senior, Eaton won the gold medal in the floor exercise at the NCAA Championships and was a national finalist for the Nissen Award honoring the top collegiate senior gymnast.

While on active duty, Eaton was assigned the position of gymnastics coach at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.  He was later named assistant coach of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team and acclaimed National Coach of the Year for women’s gymnastics in 1989.

Following years of national service, Eaton and his wife, Patty Williams Eaton, returned to Scottsdale, Ariz., to pursue their dream of starting a “gymnastics business in the desert,” which would become the prominent Desert Devils Gymnastics Training Center.

As the industry grew, so did Eaton’s penchant for adventure.  He was a Hawaii Ironman triathlete and took up skydiving, hang-gliding, parasailing, bungee jumping, rock climbing, motorcycle racing, snow and water skiing and small aircraft flying.

In March of 1995, Eaton was tragically killed in a single-engine airplane crash.  He was 45.

A native Puerto Rican, Walter Hernandez moved to Albuquerque with his family in 1915.  The “Hernandez Trio,” as Walter and his brothers came to be known, enrolled at Albuquerque High School and promptly excelled in athletics and academics.

Playing football at UNM in the early 1920s, Hernandez ran through the opposition with the thundering power of a “raging bull,” another of his nicknames.  In 1924 and ’25, Walter and his brother, Louis, were named to the All-Far Southwestern football team.  Walter Hernandez graduate from UNM in 1925 with a degree in geology.

Hernandez and his family moved to Cuba, N.M., and started a family-owned lumber, livestock, logging and trucking business, which remained in operation for the remainder of the 20th century.

At the age of 40, Hernandez became a commissioned officer at Fort Hood, Texas.  He served in combat behind enemy lines in Belgium, France and Germany, and was the recipient of a Presidential Unit Citation for gallantry in action at the Battle of the Bulge.  During three decades of military service, Hernandez rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Army.

Walter Rafael Hernandez died Jan. 21, 1991, at the age of 88.

At Cimarron, N.M., High School, Tony Valdez was a multi-sport letterman and excelled as a lightweight boxer.  He also became a skilled ranch-hand and cowboy.  After surviving the Great Depression, Valdez enrolled at UNM and became one of the school’s top boxers.  He won the 1938 Border Conference championship with “one arm,” said coach Willis Barnes.  Plagued by a dislocated shoulder, Valdez held his arm against his torso, jabbing his way to victory with the other.  Valdez earned his degree from UNM in 1939.

In 1943, Valdez began his coaching profession at Albuquerque High.  Over the next 35 years, Valdez’s teams won 61 individual and state championships in seven different sports, including boxing, gymnastics, swimming, golf and tennis.  His golf teams won five state titles in a 12-year span while his tennis players captured five straight doubles titles.  He also teamed with former UNM athletic director Pete McDavid and the venerable Jack Rushing to produce a football dynasty at AHS.

Perhaps his greatest educational legacy was the statewide and national model that he developed for training future physical education teachers.

A highly-skilled craftsman, Valdez made his own hardwood furniture, built his own houses, invested in land, became a realtor and developed the Rebonito Addition residential housing unit in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights.  At the age of 78, Valdez won the U.S. National Senior Open golf championship for his age group in Palm Springs, Calif.

Valdez died in 1994 at the age of 83.

• The “Voice of the Lobos” on KOB radio starting in 1966

• Also broadcast Albuquerque Dukes baseball

• Named New Mexico Sportscaster of the Year 13 times

• 50^th inductee into the Albuquerque Sports Hall of Fame

Basketball

• 1^st team All-WAC and 1^st team All-WAC Defensive Team

• Lobos were 82-39 in her four years at UNM

• Academic All-WAC three straight years (1997-99)

• Finished career 4^th in career rebounds