University of Tennessee Athletic Director Doug Dickey and five former Vols were among the honorees Friday evening at the 2000 Awards Banquet and Induction Ceremony of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame at the Renaissance Hotel in Nashville. Also honored were Central Florida Athletic Director Steve Sloan of Cleveland and Florida head football coach Steve Spurrier of Johnson City as new members of the Hall of Fame.

Dickey was recognized as the Tennessean of the Year for his efforts to develop the Hall of Fame Museum which opened Friday in the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville. Hall of Fame inductees with a Tennessee connection were Stanley Morgan (1973-76) and Frank Emanuel (1964-66), both NFL stars, and Phil Dickens (player at Tennessee in 1935-36 and head coach at Wofford, Wyoming and Indiana), Hooper Eblen (who played at Tennessee in 1935 in addition to serving a distinguished career at Tennessee Tech) and Murray Armstrong (who played at Tennessee 1956-58 and coached at The University of Memphis), with Dickens and Eblen being honored posthumously.

Teams to be honored are Carson-Newman College as the Amateur Team of the Year and the Tennessee Titans as the Professional Team of the Year. Individual awards went to Titans tailback Eddie George as the Professional Athlete of the Year, Cindy Parlow, from the women's World Cup soccer team, as Female Athlete of the Year, Germantown golfer David Gossett as Male Amateur Athlete of the Year, Vanderbilt tennis player Julie Ditty as Female Athlete of the Year, and other Hall inductees Mack Chandler, Keith Butler, Heidi Gillingham Jackson, and Catherine Neely.