Short version: statues and honors for former players happen because somebody nominates a person, an institution with formal authority approves it, a budget gets funded, and a piece of art or a number gets made permanent in front of the public. Almost nothing about that chain is secret. It is just distributed across committees, athletic departments, and donor campaigns that rarely explain themselves, which is why the process confuses so many fans.
I have read the same message board arguments about who deserves a statue that you have, and most of them argue past each other because nobody agrees on the order of operations. So here is the whole thing, start to finish, with the parts that are documented and the parts that are honestly reconstructed.
Last reviewed and updated for 2026. Honor lists change on induction cycles, so check the official athletics page before you plan a trip around a specific display.
Table of Contents
- What Are Statues and Honors for Former Players?
- Why Do Schools Create Statues and Other Honors?
- Who Starts the Process for Honoring a Former Player?
- How Statues and Honors for Former Players Happen From Idea to Approval
- How the Cost Is Paid For
- How the Statue or Honor Is Designed and Built
- How a Statue Gets Dedicated and Becomes a Tradition
- What Happens When an Honor Is Contested or Changes?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Conclusion: Start With the Story Behind the Honor
What Are Statues and Honors for Former Players?
A statue is the top of the ladder, but the ladder has rungs, and most people only notice the top one. A former player or coach can be recognized with a physical statue or bust, a retired or honored jersey number, a plaque or wall of honor, a named court, field, or plaza, membership in a hall of fame or ring of honor, and commemorative ceremonies that happen once a season.
Two words get mixed up constantly, so keep them apart. A permanent honor is institutional: the number comes down, the name stays on the wall, the bronze stays in the plaza. A legacy honor is symbolic: honorary captain, a salute at halftime, a banner raised for one game. Any school can hand out the second. The first takes years.
Why Do Schools Create Statues and Other Honors?
Preserving school history is the reason schools will say out loud. Behind that sit more practical motives that nobody apologizes for.
- Preserving history. A school wants a record that survives the people who remember it.
- Marking exceptional achievement. A national title or a long championship run deserves a visible marker.
- Building alumni identity. Honors give donors and graduates a reason to give again, and a place to meet on game day.
- Motivating current athletes. Younger players see the name on the wall before they see the recruiting pitch.
- Honoring a community. Some honors memorialize a coach who made the town proud, not just the team.
- Creating ritual. Once a statue stands outside a stadium, fans build a habit around it and the habit outlives the campaign that paid for it.
Who Starts the Process for Honoring a Former Player?
Anyone can start it. Almost nobody can finish it on their own. The usual initiators are family members, former teammates, an alumni association, the athletic department itself, a booster club, a student group, a local organization, or a donor who decides to fund something specific.
Approval authority sits elsewhere. Universities are usually formal entities, so anything permanent goes through an athletics review, a foundation or capital committee, and sometimes a board-level sign-off depending on how the space is being used. A statue placed in a public plaza carries a different weight than a name on a wall, and institutions treat them that way.
No school publishes a written statue-selection rubric. That is not evasion so much as reality: these decisions are usually made case by case by people with authority and a preference, then written down afterward.
How Statues and Honors for Former Players Happen From Idea to Approval
The seven-step sequence behind how statues and honors for former players happen
- Someone nominates a specific person for a specific honor.
- Staff check whether a similar honor already exists.
- A committee or the athletic director reviews the case.
- Senior leadership gives formal approval.
- The family and the subject agree, while alive.
- A budget gets built and funded.
- The project gets scheduled, made, and unveiled.
Step five is where a lot of projects slow down. Honoring someone while they are still alive requires their consent, which means the family, the subject, or an estate has a real vote. Arizona handled it in public when the Lute Olson statue was unveiled outside the Jim Click Hall of Champions on April 12, 2018, with Olson alive to approve the likeness. Compare that with the John Button Salmon memorial, erected in 1986 after his death, which is why that one could be shaped by memory rather than approval.
Two honest examples show how long recognition can stall. Frank Sancet died in 1985 and the school eventually put his name on its baseball field, which is a real honor but a modest one. Then there is Ernie McCray, who spent roughly 60 years connected to Arizona basketball and was never inducted into the Ring of Honor at McKale Center. Whatever the internal reasoning was, no committee explanation was ever published, and the case still generates arguments a decade later.
How the Cost Is Paid For
A statue is never paid for by the school alone in most cases, and the money usually arrives before the art does. Sources include the athletic department budget, a university foundation, a booster organization, private donors, an alumni campaign, licensing and sponsorship revenue, or a mix of all six.
The important detail is that the total project cost is not the same number as the sculpture. A realistic line item list runs longer than most fans expect:
- The sculpture itself, which varies by size, material, and how detailed the likeness needs to be
- Pedestal, base, and structural engineering
- Site preparation, planting, and drainage
- Lighting, which matters more than anyone predicts
- Signage and inscription
- Unveiling ceremony costs
- Long-term maintenance, cleaning, and repair
That last line is where schools get caught. A donor covers the sculpture and the ceremony, and then the institution inherits maintenance forever. Arizona Athletics does not publish a figure for what any individual statue cost, so treat any number you find as an estimate rather than a record.
How the Statue or Honor Is Designed and Built
Design starts before an artist is hired, and this is where committees do their most visible work. They choose the subject’s pose, settle the likeness, agree on scale, and decide the materials, usually bronze for a full figure or a wall-mounted piece.
Then the specifics get argued over: the inscription wording, whether the pose reads well from the stadium side or the street side, how the figure interacts with fans walking past, and whether the site is accessible to people using mobility devices. A statue that cannot be approached is a photograph, not a ritual object, and good committees test that early.
Artist selection follows, then prototypes. A sculptor submits a small maquette or clay study before full work begins, the committee reviews it, and revisions happen. Yes, the concept can be sent back more than once. Fabricating bronze means the piece is cast in sections, welded, chased, patinated, and then mounted, a process that runs months rather than weeks. A committee that changed its mind after casting started has a very expensive problem, which is why approval gates sit where they do.
How a Statue Gets Dedicated and Becomes a Tradition
The dedication is the part fans attend, and it is also the part the institution plans hardest. They pick a date around a home game or a rivalry weekend, invite the family and former teammates, write a short program, coordinate the procession past the new piece, and rehearse the reveal.
After that, the honor starts collecting habits. The Button Salmon statue outside the north end zone of Arizona Stadium is a clean example. Long-time alumni describe touching it before home games for good luck, and the “Bear Down” phrase people shout ties back to Salmon through athletic director J.F. “Pop” McKale, who relayed Salmon’s last words to the team. A campus PDF still points to the Salmon memorial as the centerpiece of Bear Down Plaza outside the southwest corner of McKale Memorial Center.
That is what a finished honor actually is: an object that graduates from a ceremony into a route, a photo spot, and eventually something people touch without thinking about it.
What Happens When an Honor Is Contested or Changes?
Disputes are normal and they run in predictable directions: who qualifies, which person should get it, what the inscription says, where the piece goes, and who pays when it gets damaged.
Schools respond in a small number of ways. They slow a project down and ask for more documentation. They revise the concept or move it to a different site. They change the wording. Occasionally they cancel, and that outcome creates the loudest reaction, because a project that raised money and then disappeared leaves donors angry and fans permanently skeptical.
Physical honors have their own version of this. The Wildcat Family statue on the Arizona campus was defaced, and a thread in r/CFB on the incident turned into a real argument about whether campus statues are guarded and who pays for repairs. Honors are targets by nature, because they are permanent public claims about who mattered.
One more failure mode is worth naming: recognition that arrives decades late or never. A retired number at one program and not another, a Hall of Fame induction after a career that fans considered obvious, a coach whose field got renamed while a player’s number stayed in circulation. That inconsistency is not always a conspiracy. It is usually just decisions made by different people in different decades without a published rubric to keep them consistent.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who decides to put up a statue at a college?
A school almost never publishes a written rubric, but the practical answer is that the athletic department and senior leadership make the call. Outside that, an alumni association, booster club, donor, or family can nominate someone, a committee reviews the case, and the institution approves it. Public universities may add a board-level step when the statue goes in a public plaza or uses university space.
Can fans request a statue or honor for a former player?
Fans can start one, but they cannot finish one. What a supporter can realistically do is document the case, line up teammates and alumni, find out whether the school already has a matching honor, and then present the petition to the athletic department or the foundation. Campaigns that arrive with a documented record and an existing precedent are the ones that get a hearing.
How much does it cost to build a college sports statue?
Schools rarely publish the figure, and totals vary widely by size, material, and site work. Treat any number you see as an estimate. The cost usually covers more than the sculpture itself: pedestal and engineering, site preparation and planting, lighting, signage, the dedication ceremony, and maintenance the school carries afterward.
How long does it take to get a statue at a college?
Budget a multi-year timeline. Nomination and committee review come first, then funding, artist selection, prototypes, revisions, fabrication, and installation, followed by the dedication. Institutions that wait for a subject to die often move faster on paperwork and slower on design. Delays of several years between a public campaign and a ribbon cutting are not unusual.
Why do some great players never get a statue or retired number?
Four reasons come up repeatedly. The bar may be higher for players than for coaches, the institution already honors that person in another tier, the funding never materialized, or internal politics kept the file from advancing. Arizona basketball is a live example: Ernie McCray spent roughly 60 years around the program and was never inducted into the Ring of Honor at McKale Center, and no explanation was ever published.
Conclusion: Start With the Story Behind the Honor
If you want to understand how statues and honors for former players happen, run the chain in order: who is being recognized, what they actually did, which tier of honor fits, who holds the authority to approve it, how the money gets raised, and why the community cares. Miss any one of those links and a project stalls, which is exactly why so many campaigns feel like they stall.
Start with the evidence and the story. Everything after that, the committee, the sculptor, the ribbon, is downstream of it.
