Mays credits mentor
Basketball legend delighted to join Haley in hall of fame
Travis Mays choked up and struggled at first when he tried to describe what it meant for him to be selected by the Florida Association of Basketball Coaches for its Court of Legends hall of fame.
He wasn’t thinking about the many exploits in his career, which include stardom at Vanguard High School of Ocala, college All-America honors at Texas, and becoming a firstround NBA draft choice in 1990.
He was thinking about his high school coach, the late Jim Haley, who was inducted into the Court of Legends in 2012. Haley, legendary for his fiery sideline antics, passion for the sport, and impact on Florida basketball as an Illinois transplant, died two years ago at 74.
“I’m trying to hold myself together here,” Mays said in a long-distance phone interview with the Orlando Sentinel. “He gave me the opportunity to change my entire family tree. I’m the first of my family to go to college. It all started with Jim Haley believing in me.”
Mays was talking from Dallas, where he is head coach for the Southern Methodist University women’s basketball program.
“Coach Haley is the reason I coach. He’s the reason I’m still with the game,” Mays said. “He’s the reason I can’t speak right now. He would have been proud.”
Mays and 10 others in the 2020 hall of fame class will be inducted in a ceremony this fall on a date not yet finalized. The list includes former Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy, now an NBA TV analyst for TNT and a proponent of the FABC; Wayne Rickman, who coached Boone to two state championships; former Seminole County school superintendent Bill Vogel; and two Orlando area referees who had long and accomplished officiating careers: Prince Pollard and Horace Cannaday.
Plaques for each person chosen are put on display on the “wall of legends” inside the RP Funding Center in Lakeland, which has long been the site of Florida’s high school basketball state tournaments. Publix sponsors that display.
“A plaque on that same wall as my coach, who I love dearly, that’s the strongest part for me,” Mays said. “Going into the Court of Legends that your teacher, your mentor, is in. … That takes it to a whole different level.”
Mays, who was inducted into the UT Hall of Honor in 2002 and the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame in 2016, said Haley’s influence dated to the day he signed up for the Saturday morning Round Runners youth program the legendary coach created.
“I was in middle school, maybe elementary school,” Mays said. “He was teaching you the fundamentals of the game. You were part of something. It meant something. It kept a lot of kids
out of trouble and it gave a lot of young men, like me, a vision.”
Mays broke the Vanguard career record one game before his final high school season ended with a 66-63 region playoff loss to a Kissimmee Osceola team coached by Ed Kershner — another FABC Court of Legends member who completed his coaching career in 2017 at Oviedo.
Mays played four scored 2,279 career in the SWC.
Mays started 55 games and averaged 14.3 points per game as a Sacramento Kings rookie in the 1990-91 season. His NBA career was limited to three seasons after he suffered ruptured tendons in his right ankle in his second year with the Atlanta Hawks in 1992-93.
Mays played professionally in Europe for seven seasons before retiring and moving into coaching.
The 2020 Court of Legends years at Texas points, second class and alltime also includes current South Carolina coach Frank Martin, a Miami native who led the Gamecocks to their first NCAA Final Four appearance in 2017; former FHSAA executive director Roger Dearing; Nease High girls basketball coach Sherri Anthony, who has won 620 games over 34 seasons; and Bill Holt, a former All-State player and Tampa Bay area referee who worked four state finals.