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The Fayetteville Sports Club announced Tuesday that four new members will join its Hall of Fame as the Class of 2009.

The four are Methodist University baseball coach Tom Austin, Terry Sanford High School tennis and girls’ basketball coach Gil Bowman, former Reid Ross and East Carolina football standout Reggie Pinkney and former E.E. Smith and Georgia Tech football star Joe Harris.

Harris holds the honor of being the first Fayetteville high school football product to play in the Super Bowl. He was a reserve linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams, and appeared in Super Bowl XIV against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Rose Bowl in 1980.[READ MORE]

"ATLANTA (July 31, 2008)—The monthly Happy Hour held at John Hunsinger & Company, commercial and industrial realtors, is no stranger to sports stars. This month, though, the sports stars seemed supersized. In attendance this month were Superbowl ring-wearing, former National Football League (NFL) players, Joseph A. Harris, author of the book, The Stars That Never Shine: The Making of a Superbowl Football Player, and Kent Hill, owner of Kent’s Country Cookies. Also, the 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson, a former National Basketball Association (NBA) player, towered over the crowd which included Marilyn Pearlman, president of Pearlman Associates public relations company, and Sam Massell, president of the Buckhead Coalition and former Atlanta Mayor. Pearlman, who only stands 4-foot-11, looked up to Sampson (both figuratively and literally); while Massell asked Sampson, “How’s the weather up there?” Later, Harris joked that Sampson must have never dealt with the jeers similar to those he himself suffered in school about being short, but also said that the “long and short of it” is that size does not dictate success. In addition to the champion football and basketball players on hand were the successful businesspeople Ginger McGuffin who celebrated the recent opening of her new restaurant, Vine, and Charlie Caperton who celebrated the recent growth of Atlanta Business Magazine."

Pictured left to right in photo by Mary Burns: Ralph Sampson, former NBA player; Marilyn Pearlman, president of Pearlman Associates public relations company; and John Hunsinger, president of John Hunsinger & Company, commercial and industrial realtors.