Dallas Cowboys offensive guard Zack Martin (70) enters the field during the 2019 Dallas Cowboys Kickoff Luncheon on Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. The luncheon benefitted the Dallas Cowboys Charity House at Happy Hill Farms. (Ashley Landis/The Dallas Morning News)
Ashley Landis/Staff Photographer
Celebrating the 75th year since its founding, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco will induct its nine-member Class of 2026 during Saturday night’s banquet in the BASE at Extraco Event Center.
The honorees represent an array of sports as diverse as Texas itself – pro and college football, college basketball, barrel racing and speed skating.
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Fans in North Texas are extra-familiar with three of the football honorees: Cowboys’ nine-time Pro Bowl guard Zack Martin; DeSoto native, Texas A&M star linebacker and 2015 Super Bowl MVP Von Miller; and TCU’s coach of 22 seasons, Gary Patterson.
During Martin’s 11-season Cowboys career (2014-2024) he was called for holding just seven times. Starting 162 NFL games, all as a Cowboy, Notre Dame product Martin, 35, earned a spot on the NFL 2010s All-Decade Team.
Miller, 37, was the NFL’s No. 2 overall pick in 2011. Along with his Broncos’ Super Bowl ring, he earned one with the Rams in 2021 and since has played for the Bills (2022-24) and Commanders (2025).
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Patterson’s 181 victories are the most in TCU history, highlighted by the Horned Frogs’ 13-0 season in 2010 and final No. 3 ranking. Patterson, 66, in January was named defensive coordinator at USC under Lincoln Riley.
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Another Class of 2026 member, Clint Dempsey, 43, hails from Nacogdoches, but his path to American and international soccer greatness was paved by his parents’ six-hour roundtrips to Dallas so that Clint could play youth soccer for the Dallas Texans.
The remaining Class of 2026:
– The 1966 Texas Western Miners national championship basketball team, the first NCAA titleist to field an all-Black starting lineup. The 28-1 Miners overcame segregation, hostile road crowds and were the subject of the 2006 film Glory Road.
– Chad Hedrick, 49, was born in Spring and became one of America’s most decorated skaters in two sports – inline speed skating and long track speed ice skating. He won a combined five Olympic winter medals in Turin (2006) and Vancouver (2010).
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– Amarillo native Charmayne James is one of the most decorated rodeo athletes in history and a Class of 2017 Pro Rodeo Hall of Famer. James, 55, and her Bay Gelding, Scamper, dominated barrel racing from 1984 until 1993, winning 10 straight world titles – the first of which came when James was just 14.
– Born in Houston and raised in Freer, Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve McMichael was an All-American tackle at Texas before embarking on his 15-year NFL career with the Patriots (1980), Bears (1981-1993) and Packers (1994). McMichael died last April 23 at age 67 due to ALS.
–Fort Worth native Louis Santop was a Negro League baseball star from 1909 to 1926, a 6-4 power hitter during the sport’s “dead ball” era. Santop, a Navy serviceman during World War I, died in 1942 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.
The Texas Sports Hall of Fame’s inaugural inductee in 1951 was baseball great Tris Speaker, making Texas the first state to have its own sports hall of fame.