Basketball, wrestling, baseball, football and swimming were the chosen sports of the 2018 class of the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame.
The only member of the 2018 class to have won a pair of NBA titles, former News19 Player of the Week Ray Allen starred at the old Hillcrest High School of Dalzell in Sumter County as his father was stationed at Shaw Air Force Base. After a stellar career at UCONN, Allen went on to an 18-year NBA career that saw him named to 10 NBA All-Star Games. He won world championships with the Celtics and Heat and he remains the NBA's all-time leader in 3-point field goals.
In March, he was named to the Naismith Memorial Basektball Hall of Fame and two months later, he goes into another hall of fame.
Former Gamecock shortstop Drew Meyer starred at Bishop England High School and then turned down the Los Angeles Dodgers offer to play pro ball right out of high school. Meyer instead chose to go to USC and then after three years he was a first-round draft pick by the Texas Rangers.
Another former Gamecock who was inducted into the hall of fame is Casey Manning who was the first African-American to play basketball at USC, doing so under the legendary Frank McGuire. A longtime circuit court judge in the Midlands, he has been the radio analyst for basketball games on the Gamecock Radio Network for the past 25 years.
Other inductees into the SC Athletic Hall of Fame included former SC State athlete Sam Goodwin who was an assistant coach at USC for one season under Richard Bell. He also was an assistant at SC State and Wichita State under Willie Jeffries. He also spent four years as a head coach at Columbia's Eau Claire High School while maintaing a job as a local pastor, a position he still holds down today.
Other inductees to the hall of fame included former Clemson wrestler Sammie Hensen, former UCLA basketball great Kenny Washington and marathon swimmer Kathleen Wilson.