Meet the Newest Inductees to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame

This week, the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame inducted six new members to its ranks, from kickboxing action stars to legendary coaches, a Super Bowl winner, and a revered broadcaster.

The 2023 inductees to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame represent a wide variety of sports. Photo courtesy Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame

And while we couldn’t all be at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for the ceremony, any Okie can have an amazing time visiting the Hall of Fame’s Jim Thorpe Museum, which is located adjacent to Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City. But in the spirit of knowing-before-going, let’s meet this year’s honored:

Dale Cook. Photo courtesy ikfkickboxing.com

Dale “Apollo” Cook

Before MMA was MMA, there was Dale “Apollo” Cook, the fighter who earned his first black belt at seventeen and, at twenty, rented out the entire Tulsa Convention Center arena to stage his first professional fight, as there were no fight promoters in the city at the time who could do it for him. He went on to become a five-time kickboxing world champion with a record of 94-4-1 in five weight classes. He also starred in ten action films including American Kickboxer 2, which, weirdly, was not a sequel to American Kickboxer. Nowadays, he is a fight promoter and runs Apollo’s Martial Arts in Tulsa, teaching his moves to adults and kids alike.

Sandy Fischer. Photo courtesy Cowgirl Softball

Sandy Fischer

When we say Oklahoma is the softball capital of the world, we mean that. And Sandy Fischer is one of the reasons why. In her twenty-three years as the head coach of the Oklahoma State University softball team, Fischer led the Cowgirls to seventeen appearances in either the NCAA Division I Regionals or the AIAW—with four appearances in the finals and a fourth-place finish in 1998. She was Big Eight Conference Coach of the year four times, notched more than 900 wins at OSU, earned nine regular-season titled in the Big Eight (and six conference trophies), and coached more than two dozen All-American players.

Chris Lincoln

I spent a little bit of time during my graduate studies at the University of Oklahoma as the teaching assistant in the journalism school’s broadcasting classes. One of the things I learned during that time is how truly difficult it is—how unusual, unique, and practiced a skill—sportscasting is. Calling a live game while it’s happening—accurately describing fast-paced events in a way that’s understandable, precise, and engaging—is unbelievably difficult. (If you don’t believe me, go to YouTube and search Boom goes the dynamite.) So it’s awesome that Chris Lincoln is honored this year by the Sports Hall of Fame, because the guy is an Oklahoma sports broadcasting legend. From 1974 to 1981, he was the sports director at KTUL in Tulsa, where he hosted, among other things, the Barry Switzer Replay Show. In the 1980s, he founded Winnercomm, a sports production company that produced more than a thousand hours of content that aired over thirteen networks and employed at one time more than 200 people in the Tulsa area. Lincoln returned to KTUL in 2007 and served as sports director until 2014. Now, he produces and hosts the show Oklahoma Sportscene.

Brent Price. Photo courtesy Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame

Brent Price

Some little brothers just can’t help but be copycats, but we’ll forgive Brent Price as he follows his older brother Mark into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. Because Brent is no follow-on act—he’s one of the Sooners’ standout basketball stars of the last fifty years. This Enid High School graduate played two years at South Carolina before joining the Sooners in 1990. He played sixty-five games for OU, starting all but one, and averaged eighteen points, 5.8 assists, and 2.7 steals per game while maintaining a shooting average of .399 from the three-point line. In the NBA, he was drafted by the Washington Bullets and played for Houston, Vancouver, and Sacramento.

James Trapp

A standout at Lawton High, James Trapp was a football and track star at Clemson, where he was a fourteen-time Atlantic Coast Conference champion, 200-meter national champion, football star, and a ten-time All-American sprinter. As a track and field athlete, he was an alternate for Team USA in the 4x100-meter relay during the 1992 Olympics. He was drafted by the Raiders in 1993 and played for the Baltimore Ravens from 1999 to 2002, including as part of their 2000 Super Bowl championship team. He ended his career with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2003.

Seymour Williams

Inducted posthumously, Seymour Williams was a legendary high school coach who led Booker T. Washington High School’s football, basketball, and track teams during the segregation era. Starting his coaching career at Booker T. in 1920, he led the Hornets’ football team to fourteen undefeated seasons and nineteen state titles; the basketball team to thirteen state titles and five national championships; and the track team to six state titles. He retired after thirty-three years with an overall record of 290-23-11.

Written By

Greg Elwell

Greg Elwell served as research editor and web editor of Oklahoma Today from 2018-2023. He also has worked for newspapers, medical research organizations, and government institutions.