Five Join Decatur High Wall of Honor

Five former Decatur High athletes were added to the school's Wall of Honor Friday night between the boys and girls games.

The athletes were Alf Anderson (1932 graduate), Frank Broyles (1942), Jimmy Southard (1946), Auburn Lambeth (1947) and Cornell Walker (1969). 

Broyles is widely considered Decatur’s greatest athlete ever. He was a star tailback, punter and safety on the football team, but his senior year he also averaged 18 points a game in a basketball era when most scores were in the 30s, and he hit .420 in baseball.

He was later head coach at Arkansas from 1958 to 1976, winning a national championship in 1964, and is in the College Football Hall of Fame. Broyles, who’s 88 and lives in Fayetteville, Ark., was represented by classmate Paul Sharian.

Anderson, Broyles’ role model, was nearly as great, starring in all three sports and later appearing in 126 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1940s. In 1940 he also played for the Atlanta Crackers.

Anderson is the only one among the five who’s deceased, passing away in 1985. He was represented Friday by his daughter, who said her father grew up on East Ponce de Leon in a house that stood approximately where Oh! La La Salon and Spa is today.

Southard, who’s still alive, was represented by a son and daughter and did not attend. Lambeth, now 83 and apparently in fine health, and Walker, Decatur’s first African-American star basketball player, attended in person.

This was the third Wall of Honor class, bringing the total to 12.

For more information about the history of Decatur High sports, go to the Facebook page for the Decatur Sports History Project.