Inductees

For successful athletes, writing the next chapter of their lives can be a challenge. However, Joe Scott offers a blueprint.

Once a basketball standout known as “the Gainesville Gunner” in high school and who later starred for the University of Missouri, Scott has become an integral part of the Poplar Bluff community over the past 50 years. Through financially supporting youth sports to offering pro bono legal services to sports organizations, coaching youth sports and on to assisting a homeless shelter, Scott has had an enormous reach.

For his efforts, the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame is proud to honor Scott with the President’s Award during the Enshrinement in Cape Girardeau. The award is given to an individual who promotes sports in the state and greatly assists the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

Scott, a Poplar Bluff attorney, has been a longtime member of the Hall of Fame’s Board of Trustees and has been a source of encouragement to longtime President and Executive Director Jerald Andrews the past 21 years. Scott has participated in every special project that the Hall of Fame has established and was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.

“I have always felt like you had a responsibility to give back,” Scott said. “People have helped me, and I wanted to help other people. Sports is something that is great. But when you get right down to it, it’s what you do afterward that is important.”

Scott is a former president of the Poplar Bluff High School booster club and is a 20-year member and former president of the Poplar Bluff Parks & Recreation Board of Directors. He also is a 25-year member and president of the board of directors of the United Gospel Rescue Mission, a past member of the Three Rivers Community College booster club and a coach in the local youth basketball league.

He has served as an attorney for the Friends of Poplar Bluff Public Library, Friends of Margaret Harwell Art Museum, Poplar Bluff Mules Booster Club, the Rescue Mission and the Three Rivers Community College Foundation.

The Poplar Bluff Parks and Rec Department is meaningful to Scott, who years ago successfully helped steer the passage of a sales tax increase supporting the department. Now locals can play an 18-hole golf course, watch their kids play at the sports complex and go on walking trails.

“In sports, I’ve always felt, after I grew up and got an education, it was a teaching tool – and not only for the athletes but for the fans,” Scott said. “They get to see the rules you have to play by. If you experience bad breaks, you have to live and go on.”

School bond issues also were championed by Scott.

“People get excited about their high school, about their town, about their kids,” Scott said. “I’ve seen people sit at games who couldn’t stand each other (away from the event). If their team was winning, they’d be high-fiving.”

The Rescue Mission also is near and dear to his heart. A recent $537,000 construction project created a new facility.

“We are making sure people in the community are fed and clothed regardless of their circumstances,” Scott told the local newspaper, the Daily American Republic, at the groundbreaking ceremony.

All this from the man who was the “Gainesville Gunner.” At Gainesville High School, he averaged 30.8 points a game, the highest scoring average in the state at that time, as a hard-driving shooting guard who often fired shots from 25 feet. He once scored 58 points in a game his senior year and finished with a career 1,100-plus points, long before the days of the 3-point line. Scott also led the Bulldogs to a fourth-place finish in the Missouri Class M state tournament in 1957, the only time the school has qualified. He earned First Team All-State (unanimous) and First Team All-Ozarks Region honors.

Scott went on to play for Mizzou. In March 1961, he scored a record-shattering 46 points against the Nebraska Cornhuskers. That record still stands today. He was a three-year letterman and scored 1,128 career points, which still ranks in the top 25, only six points behind Norm Stewart. Those totals are notable because Scott achieved them in three seasons, given that freshmen were not allowed to play. Additionally, Scott was Mizzou’s team captain and earned All-Big Eight Conference honors, plus was the school’s fourth all-time leading scorer and was the highest scoring guard of his era.

Scott also has enjoyed the support of his wife, Judith, and son, John.

“I’ve had a great life,” Scott said.