SONNY ALLEN TO BE INDUCTED INTO THE HAMPTON ROADS SPORTS HALL OF FAME
NORFOLK, VA—Sonny Allen who led the Old Dominion University men’s basketball program for 10 years which included the 1975 NCAA Division II National Championship will be one of six inducted into the Hampton Roads Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 20 at Norfolk Scope. The eighth induction class consists of Rick Mahorn, baseball player Hank Foiles of Norfolk, two-sport athlete D.J. Dozier, soccer player Angela Hucles, Andrew Heidelberg, a football player and desegregation trailblazer, and Allen.
The coaches who knew Sonny Allen best voted him as NABC College Division II National Coach of the Year in 1975 when his Running' Monarchs won the NCAA national Division II basketball championship by defeating New Orleans University, 76-74.
The Associated Press also voted him as the 1975 Small College Coach of the Year. That year, the Monarchs won 25 games, including the last 15 straight. Sonny is the only person to have coached high school, college freshmen, NCAA Division I, and II, WBL, CBA, NBA and WNBA teams.
Those coast-to-coast honors capped a remarkable 10-year tenure during which he lifted Old Dominion from a 7-17 record playing a mixture of Division III and II opponents to one second-place national finish in Division II in 1971 and then a 25-6 record against Division I and II teams and the national title.
His charter at Old Dominion, beginning with the 1965-66 season, had been to field teams worthy of a growing college and a mushrooming multi-city metropolitan area. To achieve that goal, he began granting athletic scholarships to Monarch Cagers, a first at this school. Among these athletes were to be Arthur "Button's Speakes, the first African American to be awarded a basketball scholarship in the Commonwealth of Virginia from a non-historically Black Institution, Bob Pritchett, a 1967-68 All-American who scored 1188 in only 50 games, Academic All-American Gray Eubank, and first team AP/ UPI/NABC All-Americans Dave Twardzik, Joel Copeland and Wilson Washington. Both Twardzik and Washington played in the NBA.
Emphasizing the fast-break basketball that had been his game since his high school days in West Virginia, Allen guided 10 ODU teams to a 181-94 record. The 1971 Monarch team reached the NCAA Division II finals, losing to Evansville on its Home floor, 97-82. Under the Sonny Allen Fast break, the Monarchs averaged 85 or more points nine times, including 98.2 in 1967-68 and 95.7 in 1971-72.
Before Sonny left Old Dominion for Southern Methodist University at the end of the 1974-75 championship season, his teams had reached post-season tournaments in six of his last seven seasons.
In the 1972-73 season, Allen engineered wins over five former national champions and lost by only one point to Virginia Tech, who would go on and capture the 1973 National Invitation Tournament.
His clubs also won three of the first five Kiwanis-Old Dominion Classics, despite fields that included Auburn, Baylor, Arizona, Yale, Virginia Tech, California, Indiana, Stanford, Rice and Tulane.
Such success was not unexpected. Sonny Allen had been a 6-0 wingman on a 1958 Marshall University team that led the nation's colleges in scoring. One of his teammates at Marshall was NBA great Hal Greer. Under Allen's direction, Marshall High School was 17-2 before he returned to Marshall University as a coach and guided five freshmen teams to 68 wins - the last 26 in a row. His 1967-68 Old Dominion team still holds the school scoring record, averaging 98.2 points per game.
As head coach of the Las Vegas Silverstreaks of the WBL (World Basketball League for players 6-5 and shorter),Allen won the playoffs and led the league in scoring. From 1998-2001, Allen was head coach of the WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs. They Reached the WNBA playoffs three straight years.
Sonny was inducted into the ODU Sports Hall of Fame in 1981. After coaching at SMU, Sonny became head coach at the University of Nevada where he was also inducted into their Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. Allen and wife Donna currently live in Reno, NV.
The inductees:
- Dozier starred at tailback on Penn State's 1987 national championship team and played five years in the NFL. The Kempsville High grad also played professional baseball, including 47 games in the majors.
- Foiles was a multi-sport star at Granby High who spent 11 years in major-league baseball. He played in the 1957 All-Star Game and singled in his only at-bat.
- Heidelberg was one of the "Norfolk 17," a group that integrated the city's public schools. He became the first black football player at a "white" high school in Virginia, and helped lead Norview to an Eastern District title.
- Hucles, who had more than 200 goals and 100 assists at Norfolk Academy, went on to a record-setting career at the University of Virginia, won two Olympic gold medals and played in two World Cups.
- Mahorn, who starred at Hampton University, averaged 6.9 points and 6.2 rebounds in long NBA career. He was a key player on Detroit Pistons' 1989 NBA championship team and still holds Pirates records for points and rebounds in a career, season and game.