VANDERBILT ATHLETICS HALL OF FAME – CLASS OF 2008
Perry Wallace (Basketball, 1966-1970)
Perry Wallace would have become a premier Hall of Fame candidate even if he didn’t make Southeastern Conference history by becoming the SEC’s first African-American basketball player. Wallace was a star student-athlete who went on to an outstanding career in law and education.
- First African-American basketball scholarship athlete in Southeastern Conference history
- Jersey retired by Vanderbilt University in 2004, one of only three in school history
- Attended Nashville’s Pearl High School where he stared on undefeated state championship basketball team, the first year Tennessee integrated its high school tournament.
- Sought by approximately 80 universities, mostly located in the north
- Arrived on Vanderbilt’s campus in the fall of 1966
- Still is the school’s second leading rebounder and ranks 35th in scoring, playing just three years from 1968-70.
- Named all-Southeastern Conference his senior year
- Won the SEC Sportsmanship Trophy after a vote by the league players in 1970 and has been honored many times since leaving Vanderbilt.
- In 1996 the National Association of Basketball Coaches named him to its five-man Silver Anniversary All-America team.
- 2003 inductee into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame.
- 2004 “SEC Living Legend” honoree.
- Graduated from Vanderbilt with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering and Engineering Mathematics
- Earned his J.D. degree in 1975 from the School of Law at Columbia University.
- Professor of law at The American University in Washington, D.C. since 1991.
- On the faculty of the University of Baltimore and was an attorney with the United States Department of Justice.
- Also served as a legislative analyst for Mayor Walter Washington of the District of Columbia and was a field representative for the National Urban League.