Inductees

He grew up in the southeast Missouri town of Ironton – population of roughly 1,400 – and, yet one year after graduating high school, there Chris Carr was … playing against none other than the Duke Blue Devils in the NCAA Tournament.

That is, the Duke of 1993 whose roster featured seven future NBA players and was the reigning national champion. Carr was not only on the court but hanging around despite a 35-point loss with Southern Illinois University.

“Through that, I learned more about myself than I had ever intended,” Carr said. “I was the Chevrolet Player of the Game from SIU, with a 10-point, 10-rebound performance. It really opened my eyes to what I could potentially become, an NBA basketball player.”

Carr led SIU to two more NCAA Tournament berths and then played six seasons in the National Basketball Association after earning second-round pick status (56^th overall) from the Phoenix Suns.  With that track record – and a runner-up finish to Kobe Bryant in the 1997 NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest — the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Carr with the Class of 2022.

Call it some story for a guy who, while at Arcadia Valley High School in Ironton, grew from a 5-foot-5, 105-pounder as a high school freshman into a 6-4 senior point-forward who earned All-State.

In his final two seasons, Arcadia Valley was a combined 50-6, which featured a 24-game win streak his senior year. Yet college basketball appeared questionable, mostly because of a knee injury during the district championship game. However, he opened eyes with a 20-point, 20-rebound effort in the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame Game in Columbia.

And so Carr headed to SIU. As a freshman, he helped the Salukis take Mizzou to triple overtime and Saint Louis University to double OT. The next year, he battled Minnesota in the NCAA Tournament. As a junior, he scored 28 points in a 96-92 loss to Syracuse in an NCAA Tournament opener.

At that point, Carr had scored 1,251 career points, led SIU to three Missouri Valley Conference titles and was the 1995 Valley Player of the Year and Conference Tournament MVP.

And so that spring, as a junior, he entered the NBA Draft. That one included the likes of Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse, Ed O’Bannon and future teammate Kevin Garnett.

For Carr, from a mid-major program, he still needed to showcase at individual tryouts. One was in front of the Suns, with owner Jerry Colangelo watching from the seats. They later went to dinner, where Carr mentioned Colangelo’s Italian silk tie. Weeks later, guess who made the opening day roster?

“We return to Phoenix for the start of the season and I enter the locker room and find a gift on my chair,” said Carr, who had made the opening day roster. “It was a leather tie holder. Inside, a note with five Italian hand-sewn ties, telling me congratulations and now I have my own. Pretty special.”

Eight games into his rookie season, Carr became a starter on a playoff-bound team. He later played for the Timberwolves, Nets, Warriors, Bulls and Celtics.

The 1997 Slam Dun Contest was memorable because it came during All-Star weekend as the NBA celebrated its top 50 players of all-time.

“I was so honored that a lot of those guys knew who I was!” Carr said.

For Carr, so many helped make the journey possible. They include his mom, Perlie Mae Carr, and his wife, Tanya. He thanks brothers David, Johnnie, Jim and sisters Eleanor and Martha.

Mentors were Dave Bone, Kent Lashley, Danny Foster, Bob McHenry while in high school, and then in college Rich and Ron Herrin, Rodney Watson, Sam Weaver, Ashraf Amaya Chris Lowry. Lifelong mentors and close friends were Ronnie Gibbs, Bernard Finke, Shelby Chan, Chris Foster, Richard Lehman and Corey Tate.

Carr has given back to the game as a coach. He was the head coach of the Eden Prairie (Minn.) High School girls basketball team from 2010 to 2015. His teams were 106-34, earned Class 4 state runner-up and a third-place finish. He also founded 43 Hoops, LLC, an elite AAU program.

This year marks his second as an assistant for Drury University men’s basketball, after five seasons with the Kansas State women’s program.

The driving force?

“The belief in the words from my mom, “If you have two hands and two feet, you can always work,” Carr said. “Those words propelled me into becoming the man I am today.”