Former Airedale coach Tom McMurray inducted into Hall
By Kevin Taylor
Alma Schools
Tom McMurray wasn’t just the school’s track coach while gracing the hallways of Alma Schools. He became something more.
“As a player, he was phenomenal at getting close enough to you so that you gave your all for him,” recalls longtime Alma coach and teacher Chad Powell, who was a football and basketball player in the late 1980s when McMurray was settling in as a young coach.
“If he got on to you about effort and execution, your reaction was to do better,” Powell said. “As a fellow coach, he was a huge mentor who had the answers and corrections that you needed. He was. and still is, a phone call away.”
McMurray is among nine inductees going into the Arkansas Track & Field Hall of Fame later this month. The ATFHF will induct its 31st class during a 6:30 p.m. banquet on May 30 in the Silver City Ballroom of the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel in North Little Rock.
“I am both honored and humbled to be included in the 2026 Hall of Fame,” McMurray said. “I personally think it is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the coaching staff, the administration that supported us, and the athletes who bought into the program. I am so proud of what we accomplished over the years and to be recognized for those achievements.”
A longtime assistant football coach who worked under Frank Vines, Todd Dilbeck, and Doug Loughridge, McMurray’s Alma tenure spanned parts of four decades and included five state championships, two in football (1997-98) and three boys’ state track titles in 2004, ‘05, and ‘09. In addition, he had two runner-up finishes, one girls’ state runner-up, and nine conference titles.
Coaches, from left to right, include McMurray, Brooks Witherspoon, David Hale, Chad Powell, Kevin Hesslin, and Frank Vines.
McMurray produced 64 all-state athletes, 246 all-conference athletes, and 48 Meet of Champs participants, four individual Meet of Champs winners, one Meet of Champs relay champion, 25 individual state champions, and three relay state champions. In April of 2023, Alma officially renamed the track at Alma Intermediate School in his honor.
On April 6, 2023, Alma renamed the track at Alma Intermediate School in Tom McMurray's name. Former Alma Athletic Director Doug Loughridge (left) and McMurray.
As a certified track official, McMurray has worked 14 NCAA Indoor Division I Championships, three NCAA Indoor Division II Championships, one NCAA Outdoor Division I Championship, five Division I regional meets, 15 SEC Indoor Championships, two SEC Outdoor Championships, and two USATF state meets.
To be the best means taking mental notes. There are a handful of state-wide coaches McMurray leaned on.
“James Lemley and Steve Peoples (Fort Smith Southside), Karl Koonce (Lake Hamilton), Don Carnahan and Charlie Goodman (Russellville), Don Pierce (Jessieville), John Mackey (Mansfield), and Hays Lemley and Rod Ray (Van Buren) - all of those guys were very important to my coaching career,” McMurray said. “I remind (younger coaches) of the importance of building relationships with their athletes; look for the positives and not the negatives.”
A Van Buren native, McMurray coached for two years in Greenland before signing on with the Airedales. But it wasn’t until 1993 that the program won its first conference championship under his watch.
“We had won four events, and we needed to win the 4x400 (relay) to win the meet and beat Harrison,” McMurray said. “That was a great finish to a conference meet.”
Almost 10 years later (2004), Alma won its first team state championship. “It’s like we came from out of nowhere to win the state meet,” McMurray said. “We were primarily a junior-laden team. We only won one event (4X800 relay), but it was also the first year that the state started scoring eight events; therefore, those fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth place finishes were very important. To see the look on our athletes’ faces when they realized we were going to win was priceless.”
Alma was able to repeat the following year.
“We were even mentioned as a favorite in the local paper that morning (2005),” McMurray said. “I made sure every athlete had a chance to read that article. That meet was over after the field events; we were so dominant, scoring over 100 points.”
Alma came close in 2007-08, but finally reached the pinnacle again in 2009. “We had 61 ½ points after the field events and the 4x800 relay,” McMurray said. “We put the nail in the coffin by finishing first, fourth, fifth, and sixth (22 points) in the 800.”
So many athletes
“Daren Simmons was my first athlete to win a state event in the 110 and 300 hurdles,” McMurray said. “Michael Orrick, a 5-foot-9 athlete, jumped 6-9 to win the state high jump one year.”
Dexter Pendergraft, a multi-sport athlete, scored points in the 100, 200, 400, and 4x400 relay in both 2004-05.
“I coached the distance events (4x800 relay, 800 meters, 1600 meters, and 3200 meters,” McMurray said. “We had some great kids who worked very hard. Matt Mason was just an animal when it came to distance. He had both the endurance and the speed to compete at a different level. He single-handedly almost won the 2007 state meet, scoring 32 points and winning three events and finishing second in the relay.”
There were plenty of other good athletes along the way, including Nathan Wesel, Matt Wilkes, Kolby Hathaway, and John Nazzar, who led Alma to its first 4x800 state title in 2004.
Five years later, Colton Mason, Izaak Montoya, Alex Montoya, and Brooks Blanton won the 4x800, and all four scored points in the 800-meter, which sealed Alma’s 2009 state championship.
The late David Hale helped develop some great field event throwers, including shot putters V.C. Winters, Deshun Whitby, Jessie Pennington, and Jordan White. Ryan Evans, John White, Biagio Tuminello, and Michael Phan dominated in the discus.
Lenn Hall coached some great pole vaulters, too, McMurray said - Brent Sams, Luke Humphreys, Mason McSpadden, Jared Brooks, and Gordon Sassar.
Ethan Brewer, Tim Pearson, Alex Elam, and Nick Wilbanks were part of Alma’s best-ever 4x400 relay team, winning both the 2012 5A state title and the Meet of Champs. Tres Rowland won the 2014 state title and Meet of Champs in the 300 hurdles.
“So many athletes made coaching special,” McMurray said. “Watching them improve week by week was very rewarding. We had won seven conference championships in a row and were looking forward to hosting and winning our eighth (straight). However, Vilonia had a better team that year and knocked us off. I remember feeling very disappointed in the outcome. (But) When I sat down to review our results, I realized we had posted our best times of the year at every meet. We had not only competed hard but had set new PR’s in just about every event.
“Sometimes, the other team is just a little bit better than you are.”
McMurray credits former Alma coaches Hall, Hale, Zach Jones, Jeremie Burns, JD Coursey, Brad Ray, Joey Potts, Kathy Jones, and Eli Drinkwitz for their invaluable contributions.
The inductees
“With the biggest class in years, we have nine outstanding inductees for the Class of 2026,” said John Steward, president of the ATFHF. “We have current college and high school coaches. We have NCAA and Arkansas officials. We have high school state and collegiate champions. We have Junior Olympic and Olympic champions. These inductees represent a time frame from the 1960s to the present day. That is seven decades of track and field. I am very impressed and in awe of this class.”
In addition to McMurray, the 2026 class includes Jeff Henderson, an Olympic gold medalist in the long jump in 2016; Antwan Hicks, an Olympian and NCAA champion; Jada Baylark, Caleb Cross, and Payton Stumbaugh Chadwick, All-Americans at the University of Arkansas; Rick Baker, who led boys teams to 15 state championships; Robert Palmer, the first African American from Little Rock Central to be awarded a full athletic scholarship at the U of A, the first African American track letterman, and the first to graduate, and Earl Goldman, a three-time All-American at what is now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.”