Every week, Cliff Furr is Talking Ball, Y’all with a new weekly column that’s presented by our partners at Toyota of Brookhaven.

I’ll never be a member of a Hall of Fame, but in my days on the bench, I was lucky enough to coach some future hall of famers and to coach alongside some too.

I’ll get into the merits of being a hall of famer later, but first I need to rant.

How in the heck is former Copiah-Lincoln Community College women’s basketball coach Gwyn Young not in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame?

As a lifelong lover of all things community colleges, it feels like a slap in the face of those of us that treasure that league, its schools, and traditions.

In 2015, the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame enshrined current William Carey University men’s basketball coach Steve Knight. The hall published literature calling Knight the winningest college basketball coach in the state at the time.

That was not true and Coach Knight, a guy who’s built a powerhouse program by recruiting the Mississippi community college ranks, could have probably told you that Gwyn Young had won more basketball games than him and anyone else.

Earlier this year, former Delta State men’s basketball coach Steve Rives was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.

Steve Knight and Steve Rives are great men and basketball coaches, but if they are hall of famers worthy of representing our state in a truly exclusive club, then it’s past damned time to have Gwyn Young in that same club.

A career record of 1,004-306. 48 years as head coach of his alma mater. A trailblazer who began when many other schools still only fielded club teams for the sport.

He won championships, he sent players to the highest levels of the game after they left Wesson, and he changed lives with his leadership and love for his teams.

There is a sorority of women who played for Gwyn Young and love him like another father. I spent a few awesome years seeing those connections up close as his assistant coach.

If the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame doesn’t wake the hell up, I’m going to get a bus and load those ladies up and we’ll all talk to someone on Lakeland Drive in person.

I will say this about the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, they have done a great job of making sure that those inducted are worthy of that honor, which I think is important.

Young is a member of the NJCAA Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, the Copiah-Lincoln Sports Hall of Fame, and the Mississippi Association Community College Conference (MACCC) Hall of Fame.

As I’m typing this, the 2025 class of inductees for the Co-Lin Sports Hall of Fame are being honored at 2025 Homecoming.

That group includes current CLCC head softball coach Meleah Brown Howard. Howard has won two NJCAA National Championships as a coach, but she’s being inducted this time as a player.

It’s a star-studded class with Howard being joined by Steven Gauthe (baseball), Jessie Bowman (football), Bowman McGhee (tennis), Robin Harris (basketball), Ann Webster (basketball), Jacob Ross (golf), and Calvin Green (football).

Bowman was a football star at Brookhaven High who played at Mississippi State after leaving Co-Lin. Ross grew up on the golf courses of Southwest Mississippi before prepping at Brookhaven Academy and then playing at Mississippi State.

For over 30 years, Green coached football at Co-Lin after his standout career as a defensive back. Living on campus with his family, Green was a longtime linchpin of the blue-collar football program in Wesson.

That’s a group worthy of the honor of being enshrined as the best of the best on the courts and the fields.

The MACCC Hall of Fame holds a ceremony each year where they honor one man or woman from each school that’s already a member of their respective hall of fame. It’s a hall of fame for hall of famers and Gwyn Young is already in it, as are Glenn Davis, Ray Ishee, Keith Case, Randy Thomas, and other CLCC legends.

I’ve been to more than a couple of those MACCC HOF ceremonies over the years and I can tell you that not every school treats the honor the same.

There will be championship coaches and former NFL or NBA players on the list each year. And then there will be a guy whose bio states that he was once on a good team in 1965 and he now owns some big business or maybe he’s on the board at said school.

The Co-Lin Sports HOF has gotten better and better over the last 10-15 years by making sure that nobody gets in just because they were good friends with a previous group of hall members.

And I love the younger generations getting their due. Bowman is the first member of the 2006 football team to be enshrined.

I looked at the roster for that team not too long ago. It was stocked with future Division I football players, no wonder those Wolves beat the no. 1 team in the nation that season and made a bowl game.

Ross is the second big time golf alum to be enshrined in recent years, joining another former MSU golfer in Matthew Mooney.

Howard is in as a player now, but she’ll eventually be a member as a player and a coach, as Gwyn Young has also been honored.

Hall of fames are meant to be the ultimate honor that an athlete or coach can receive.

They’re not meant for good players or coaches, they’re meant for the greats.

I applaud the organizations that do it right, and I’m ready for the people at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame to give Coach Young what he’s due, a spot forever in its annals.