June 4, 2007

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Former Auburn greats David Housel, David Marsh and Sonny Smith were inducted into the 2007 Alabama Sports Hall of Fame Class Sunday at the Ballroom in Sheraton Birmingham Hotel. Housel served in the sports information office at Auburn from 1980 until 1994 when he took over as athletics director, a post he held until 2005. Marsh coached the Auburn swimming and diving teams from 1990-2007, winning 12 national titles. Smith, meanwhile, coached the Auburn men's basketball team from 1979-89, winning 173 games over that stretch, which is third-most in team history.

Housel, Marsh and Smith joined Jerry Duncan, Wilbur Jackson, Buck Johnson, Barry Krauss, Al Lary, Mal Moore and Gene Washington as 2007 inductees.

Housel came to Auburn as a freshman in 1965 from Gordo, Ala. The journalism major worked in the ticket office from 1970-72 after graduating in 1969. Housel served as a journalism professor for nine years before becoming an assistant sports information director in 1980. He was named sports information director in 1981 and assistant athletics director in 1985. During his tenure in the sports information office, Housel worked 18 consecutive men's basketball Final Fours.

In 1994, Housel took over as Auburn's 13th athletics director, a post he held until 2005. During his tenure as AD, Auburn teams won eight national championships. The Tigers won 30 Southeastern Conference titles and 143 teams advanced to the postseason under Housel. In the 2003-04 season alone, 16 of the 21 teams advanced to the postseason and seven finished in the top 25 nationally.

A native of Hialeah, Fla., Marsh was the head coach for both the men's and women's teams at Auburn for 17 seasons from 1990-2007. His 12 national championships (seven men's, five women's) are more than any other coach in state history. He is the only coach ever to lead both a men's and women's team to national championships in the same season and accomplished the feat four times. The men's team has won five consecutive national championships, and the women have won four of the last five. He also won 19 combined SEC titles.

Marsh had 12 Auburn swimmers representing several countries in the 2004 Summer Olympics, and has coached a total of 22 Olympians. He was an assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team twice. In 2003, he was the head coach of Team USA that won the World Championship.

Marsh received the National Collegiate and Scholastic Swim Trophy twice (the highest award given in swimming in the U.S), and is the only person to receive the award more than once. He was named NCAA Coach of the Year (Men's or Women's) eight times during his career. In 2005, he was named the Walter Gilbert Award recipient - the highest award for a former student-athlete at Auburn.

Marsh was a five-time All-American backstroker at Auburn. In 1980, he was the SEC backstroke champion and was ranked sixth in the world at the time.

Smith is third on Auburn's all-time wins list, posting 173 with the Tigers from 1979-89. He became the first Auburn coach with 20 wins in a season in 1984 and to date, is the only coach in the team's history with three consecutive 20-win seasons (1984-86). In 1984, his first 20-win season, Smith was selected as the National Association of Basketball Coaches District VI Coach of the Year.

During his tenure at Auburn, Smith earned SEC Coach of the Year honors in 1984 and 1989. He guided the 1985 team to Auburn's first SEC Tournament Championship. That club also became the first team in school history to make it to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

A Roan Mountain, Tenn., native, Smith tutored Auburn's first SEC Player of the Year, Charles Barkley. He also served as an assistant coach to Louisville's Denny Crum to select the 1987 United States Pan American team.