Clarksville, TN – The Austin Peay State University (APSU) athletics department will add eight of the program’s greatest student-athletes to the Governors Ring of Honor during Homecoming weekend ceremonies, October 25th-26th, 2024.
This season’s honorees include football alumni Carlton Flatt (1964) Chris Fletcher (2007), and Kordell Jackson (2021). Baseball alumni Jamie “Cat Walker (1992) and Lyle Miller-Green (2023), as well as women’s golf alumnae Chelsea Harris Phillips (2011), volleyball alumnae Connie Caldwell-Rogan (1989), and women’s track and field alumna Breigh Jones (2015) and Sherlonda Johnson (2006) also will be recognized during the ceremonies.
The addition of the eight newest members will bring the Governors Ring of Honor to 41 members.
The Governors Ring of Honor is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon student-athletes or coaches. It recognizes those individuals as among Austin Peay State University’s most outstanding in their associated collegiate sport. This honor enshrines its recipients within APSU’s athletics facilities by permanently displaying an honoree’s name in their home facility where possible.
The Ring of Honor also provides the ability to recognize those APSU student-athletes who competed in men’s cross country, women’s cross country, men’s indoor and outdoor track & field, women’s indoor and outdoor track & field, men’s golf, women’s golf, women’s rifle, women’s tennis, and men’s tennis.
2024 Ring of Honor Inductee Biographies
Connie Caldwell-Rogan (#10), Volleyball
Caldwell-Rogan can be called the first great Austin Peay volleyball player. Despite battling lung issues throughout her career, she was a two-time First Team All-Ohio Valley Conference honoree (1986-87). She helped lead Austin Peay State University to its first OVC title in 1986 when they won the Southern Division title. Caldwell-Rogan was the OVC Southern Division Player of the Year during that championship campaign despite missing the final month of the season.
Caldwell-Rogan also was the first player in program history to earn OVC All-Tournament honors after being named to the 1986 squad. Caldwell-Rogan was inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame this March in recognition of her outstanding prep career at Kirkman Technical High School, her Austin Peay career, and her contributions as a volleyball coach at several Nashville area high schools.
Carlton Flatt (#10), Football
Flatt was the Governors’ first player to earn one of the Ohio Valley Conference’s top honors, winning the league’s Offensive Player of the Year award in 1964 while also picking up First Team All-OVC as a defensive back. In an era where the run game was still king, Flatt became the first Govs quarterback to pass for more than 10 touchdowns, passing for 740 yards and 11 touchdowns in that 1964 campaign.
He also had 356 rushing yards and was the first Governors player to finish a season with 1,000 total offensive yards in its history as a four-year program. He went on to become head coach at Brentwood Academy, where he enjoyed a 38-year career and led the Eagles to 10 state championships and 10 runner-up finishes.
Flatt’s 355 wins are the third most in Tennessee prep history. He was inducted into Austin Peay State University’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 1981 and has since been inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and the Middle Tennessee Football Official’s Association Coaches Hall of Fame.
Chris Fletcher (#8), Football
Fletcher’s four-year career spanned an era where Austin Peay State University transitioned from the nonscholarship Pioneer Football League to the scholarship Ohio Valley Conference. He excelled in both leagues, winning 2007 First Team All-Ohio Valley Conference honors after earning All-Pioneer Football League recognition twice (2005-06).
Fletcher’s 4,688 career rushing yards remain the program record by more than 1,000 yards, while he averaged a program-best 106.5 yards per game during his career. He was responsible for scoring a program-record 42 touchdowns, the only running back in program history to record 40 or more touchdowns — and recorded 28 100-yard games in a career that saw him play 44 games.
Chelsea Harris Phillips, Women’s Golf
The most decorated female golfer in Austin Peay State University history, Harris was among the most consistently high-level performers to ever tee off for an Ohio Valley Conference school.
Once the league began to present all-conference and all-tournament honors in 2001, Harris was one of only two student-athletes in conference history to have been named All-OVC and All-OVC Tournament all four years of their respective careers.
Harris’ junior season was one for the record books. In addition to becoming just the second player in APSU history to earn OVC Player of the Year, Harris became the first player in six years to take home individual medalist honors at the OVC Championship in the same season. She won the conference tournament by five strokes with a 180 (71-74-35); that margin of victory wouldn’t be surpassed met again until 2014.
After her senior season, the TGA selected Harris to represent Team Tennessee in the Southeastern Women’s Amateur Team Championship (SWATC), a Solheim Cup/Ryder Cup-style event between teams from Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Alabama.
Kordell Jackson (#13), Football
A two-time consensus All-American (2019-20), Jackson needed just two seasons to become one of Austin Peay State University’s greatest defensive backs. Playing at nickelback, he was a three-time First Team All-OVC pick (2019-21) and was a versatile defender.
Jackson finished his career ranked fourth all-time in tackles for loss (33.5), fifth all-time in total interceptions (11), and third in passes defended (33). During his incredible 2019 season, he recorded seven interceptions for 159 yards in returns, recovered two fumbles, had 47 tackles, 8.0 tackles for loss, and two sacks.
His biggest statement that season came in Week 3 when he nicked Mercer for two pick-sixes in a famous 48-34 victory that set the tone for the Governors’ first OVC Championship since 1977 and the program’s first-ever trip to the FCS Playoffs.
Sherlonda Johnson, Track & Field 1986
Johnson had no trouble winning. She earned five gold medals for Austin Peay State University over the years, four in the long jump and one in the 55-meter dash. And if she attempted it, she wound up being pretty good at it.
A natural jumper, she actually held the 55-meter record for nearly a decade following her graduation. Johnson was the 2006 Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Field Athlete of the Year and was the OVC Female Athlete of the Championship after winning the gold medal in both the 55-meter dash and long jump while adding a sixth-place finish in the triple jump – the coda to her outstanding indoor career.
She won the long jump, was second in the 100-meter dash and fourth in both the 200-meter dash and the triple jump, and made her case as one of the best true “two-way” athletes—excelling on the track and in the field—in Austin Peay history.
Breigh Jones, Track and Field
Jones made three NCAA East Preliminary appearances as a Governor and also became Austin Peay’s first NCAA Championship participant in 14 years when she earned a spot in Oregon in 2014, where she finished 20th nationally.
She also finished her career holding each of the Top 10 outdoor times in the program’s 400-meter dash history, as well as the indoor 400 record, the outdoor 200 record, while also running legs as a member of the program’s record-setting indoor 4×400 and outdoor 4×100 relay teams.
The Memphis native Austin Peay State University has a case full of gold medals, including the gold medal in the OVC outdoor 400-meter dash twice (2014-15) and the league’s indoor 400-meter dash (2015). She also was the 2015 OVC Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year and APSU’s Legends Award recipient.
Lyle Miller-Green (#13), Baseball
There is nothing premature about Miller-Green’s inclusion as one of Austin Peay State University’s greatest players. Miller-Green’s incredible 2024 campaign saw him earn consensus All-America recognition – the first for a Governors baseball player. He rewrote the Austin Peay State University and Atlantic Sun Conference record books in 2024.
LMG set APSU’s single-season records for home runs (30), RBI (94), and runs scored (94) while batting .393 and setting program records with a .900 slugging percentage and .533 on-base percentage. He also set the ASUN single-season records for home runs, runs scored, and slugging percentage.
The Burke, Virginia native, was joined by teammate Jon Jon Gazdar as the program’s first-ever First-Team Academic All-American, and Miller-Green became the program’s first Atlantic Sun Conference’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year after earning his bachelor’s degree in general studies in December with a 3.61 GPA and posted a 4.00 GPA during his first semester of graduate school.
Jamie Walker (#17), Baseball
Walker became the first Austin Peay State University pitcher to reach the major leagues and ultimately enjoyed a 10-year MLB career with three organizations. His 545 career appearances as a pitcher remain the record for a Governor’s pitcher in the major leagues despite five Governors pitchers following him to the league.
Walker was the program’s highest draft choice in 20 years when the Houston Astros picked him in the 10th round in 1992. That followed an APSU career that saw him earn OVC Pitcher of the Year honors in 1992 after going 9-5 with a 2.74 ERA, and a then program-record 89 strikeouts, breaking Mike Ramsey’s 20-year-old record.
His eight complete games remain the program record, and Walker was the first Governors pitcher with three career shutouts, a record that has been tied only since Shawn Kelley graduated.
