Mount Holly HOF 2017_Compress by SouthlakeChristianAcademy

Event Program

Opening Remarks ................................... Gary Neely

Presentation of Colors ............................ Rankin Safety Patrol

Pledge of Allegiance ............................... Rankin Safety Patrol

Singing of our National Anthem ........... Paige Sisk

Invocation .............................................. Rev. James Ford

Dinner

Welcome ................................................. Mayor Bryan Hough

Recognition of Special Guests ............... Eddie Wilson

Past Inductees

Corporate Sponsors

City and County Officials

Committee Members

Special Thanks

2017 MHSHOF Scholarships

Induction Ceremony

Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame Community Spirit Award

Sponsored by American & Efird ................ Scott Pope & Matt Nichols

Presented to Carl Baber

Eddie Wyatt, Jr. ...................................... Eddie Wilson

Grant Hoffman Jr. .................................. Derek Spears

East Gaston’s 1977 Golf Team ............... Doug Smith

Carmen Baker ........................................ Gary Neely

James Ford ............................................... Doug Smith

Closing Remarks .................................... Gary Neely

MHHS Song ........................................... Eddie Wilson

EGHS Song ............................................ James Ford

Hall of Fame Committee

President - Gary Neely

Vice President - Scott Pope

Treasurer - Doug Smith

Secretary - Eddie Wilson

Committee Members - James Ford, Derek Spears and Ray Campbell

Hall of Fame Committee

Committee Members from (left to right) Gary Neely, James Ford, Scott Pope, Aaron Suttenfield, Eddie Wilson, Ray Campbell. — Photograph courtesy of Mount Holly Hall of Fame * Doug Smith and Derek Spears were unavailable for photo *

2017 MHSHOF Scholarships

2017 MHSHOF Scholarship Winners & Sponsors

Lindsey Morgan Blackwell, EGHS will be attending Coastal Carolina University

Bob & Marguerite Randall Scholarship

2017 MHSHOF Scholarships

Individual Endowment Opportunities Are Available

Guidelines for Applications

The MHSHOF scholarship is awarded on the basis of a competitive process that considers academic achievement, extracurricular and community involvement and financial need.

Four five hundred dollar scholarships will be paid directly to the recipient’s school, where the student must be enrolled and in good standing.

To be considered for this scholarship, applicants must meet the following criteria:

• A high school senior.

• Maintain a GPA of at least 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.

• Applied to a credited college or university.

• Must not be a dependent of a member of the board of the MHSHOF or of the guidance department.

• Must not be a recipient of a major scholarship of $3000 or more from another source.

Purpose and Process

The purpose of the MHSHOF Scholarship is to provide college funds to deserving students with financial need. The scholarship is paid directly to the recipient’s school for tuition. The recipient supplies the information needed to submit the payment.

Application Process

Applications must be submitted on or by April 1 to the Guidance Department at East Gaston High School and Stuart Cramer High School.

* Individual Endorsement Opportunities are Available

Past Inductees

2007

Coach Delmer Wiles

Robert Black

2008

Arthur Davis

Bearl Davis

Max Davis

Wilbern Davis

Bertha Dunn

George Fincher

Neb Hollis

2009

Coach Dick Thompson

Vivian Laye Broome

Tommy Wilson

Don Killian

Ray Campbell

1963 MHHS Football Team

2010

Joe Huffstetler

John Farrar

Coach Joe Spears

Johnny Wike

1990 East Gaston Wrestling Team

Community Spirit Award Winner

Dwight Frady

2011

Bruce Bolick

Wayne Bolick

Frank Love

Perry Toomey

Scott Stewart

T.L. McManus

Jim McManus

Samuel “Dink” McManus

Community Spirit Award Winner

John Lewis

2012

Larry Hartsell

Freddy Whitt

Dawn Moose

Ronnie Harrison, Sr.

William Outen

1967 MHHS Football Team

Community Spirit Award Winner

Bobby John Rhyne

2013

J.B. Thompson

Charlie “Poss” Drumm

Doug Smith

Shane Trull

1940’s MHHS Hawkettes Basketball

1960’s MHHS Hawkettes Basketball

Community Spirit Award Winner

Sarah Nixon

2014

Lois Herring Parker

A.C. Hollar

Larry Lawing

Eddie Wilson

Tracy Black

Richard Dill

Community Spirit Award Winner

Buddie Hodges

2015

Zeb McDowell

Max Sherrill

Phil Roberts

Laura Randall Woodhead

1954-55 Hawks Baseball

1967-68 & 1968-69

Hawks Basketball

Community Spirit Award Winner

Barry Jessen

2016

Barry Grice

Derek Spears

Stephanie Frazier

Jerry Brooks

1991 East Gaston Wrestling

Community Spirit Award Winner

Aaron Goforth

School Songs

2017 Community Spirit Award

Carl BaBer

Some men, loyal to extremes, support their cause and alma mater regardless, even if it means surgical proof that they truly bleed Carolina blue.

Carl Baber, 83, of Mount Holly, is known as the man who built Gaston County ballparks – fancy ballparks, with lights, concession stands and fences, so children could have finery when they played. He got partners, land and financial donations with commas after the dollar signs, but when it came to a personal medical ordeal, Baber landed in a dilemma.

In the late 1980s, Baber had open heart surgery. A UNC-Chapel Hill graduate with a degree in Parks and Recreation Administration and a few master’s courses to his credit, Baber felt entitled to a surgeon from Carolina. He got one from Wake Forest.

“He let me know that’s where he was getting paid. He said, ‘When you’re in the hospital in this kind of shape, you’re going to have to take anybody,’” Baber says.

The surgery was successful, until Baber peeked at his chest

the next day. The surgeon, using orange Mercurochrome, had signed his work with a big ‘WF.’

“I’ve had open heart surgery twice,” Baber says. “The second time, I got to choose a guy from Carolina.” That brand of persistence made Baber a staple in Gaston sports and put him in the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame to honor a career that created approximately 50 athletic fields, parks, a few tennis courts and had the fishing hole at Poston Park in Gastonia named Carl Baber, Jr. Lake, marked with a green and tan sign.

His loyalty toward his 26-year task as Gaston County’s director of parks and recreation played out in his devotion to children and his partnerships with county leaders and donors.

“I knew how to do it, and if I had the right partners, we could accomplish something,” he says. “So, throughout the county, you have these matching grant programs. It was good PR for the county commissioners also, getting the match and getting something nice. The biggest thing to me was, I didn’t do all this stuff by myself. I always had partners.”

Baber ’s parks profession, in reality, was Plan B.

He started at the University of North Carolina as a pharmacy major. “That’s what my family wanted me to do. My uncle was a druggist and had drugstores,” he says, “but Carolina had a quarters system, so we had Saturday classes and there would be 60,000 people going to Kenan Stadium and I’d be in there trying to make aspirin tablets. So I changed my major.”

Baber played baseball four years at Mount Airy High School, then joined the military before getting his degree and becoming assistant director of parks and recreation in Mooresville (“It’s a town the university liked to use to train people,” he says. “A lot of parks directors throughout the state start in Mooresville.”)

He came to Gaston County in the fall of 1973.

“Of course, not having any staff or money or land, it had to be creative to get going. So I thought, the first thing we needed to do was have a master plan,” he says, “and the first thing I did was ask for 100 acres in Dallas. And that’s now known as Dallas Park.

“Another thing we needed to do was form a park grading crew, because the county owned a lot of equipment like bulldozers and so forth, and we’d take the machines out and use them for grading.”

Longtime friend Aaron Goforth, a 2016 Hall of Fame Community Spirit Award recipient, remembers Baber’s persistence. “None of the baseball fields in Gaston County would have been built, if not for him,” Goforth says. “He did parks all over the county.”

Goforth cites the $10,000 raised for a concession stand at Mount Holly Middle School, which was doubled by a matching

grant, and the $50,000 in matching funds for Costner Field facilities. Lights went up, the school had a new place, and Babe Ruth teams were invited to play there, too. “And when we needed a new gym, the school system didn’t have the money, but somehow or other, he did a deal with the county commissioners, and they did it,” Goforth says.

Baber ’s work can be seen at places such as Bessemer Middle School – “probably the only middle school in the state with four lighted athletic fields,” he says – and East Gaston High School’s baseball and softball fields, concession stand and press box, as well as its tennis courts.

“They (East Gaston) had 2 x 4s for a foul line. And we fenced it, lighted it, and put the softball field right next to it. And we did most of that with the Stanley American Legion, and that made it good for the high school and the community,” Baber says.

His work ventured into soccer, resulting in the Gaston United Soccer Club. “You know, soccer didn’t come into Gaston County until the mid-1980s, and we didn’t have the staff and we had to get a partner, and that’s when Gaston United was formed (in 1992),” he says. “We furnished the field, and they ran the program.”

Throughout his career, Baber found few obstacles to stop his mission. Even nature couldn’t halt his progress.

“At Hunter Huss,” he says, “the school board had a big renovation project, and we graded the land and got enough land

to have a high school baseball field. But we had to re-route a creek in order to do that. Just kind of helped it move along.”

He says his MHSHOF induction is “humbling.”

“It’s appreciated by me and my family. I’m just pleased they’d think of me and want me in there,” he says. “Sometimes, baseball is what kept kids in school, and then they’d go on to college and get an education, and you feel good to have had a part in that, in making their lives better. So, it means a lot to be recognized where I live, by people I know.” ■

— By Kathy Blake

Career Highlights

• Director of Gaston County Parks and Recreation for 26 years

• Arranged acquisition of 100 acres to create Dallas Park

• Arranged acquisition of 156 acres to create Poston Park

• Helped get matching grant program to light Tuckaseegee Park

• Helped get lights installed at Mount Holly Middle School

• Raised $50,000 in matching funds for facilities at Costner Field

• Instrumental in the installation of tennis courts at East Gaston High School

• Oversaw upgrades and construction of East Gaston’s baseball and softball fields, concession stands and press box

• Furnished soccer fields for Gaston United Soccer Club

eddie Wyatt, Jr.

Eddie Wyatt Jr. remembers waking early on school days to run.

He ran downhill on Stanley Spencer Mountain Road to the South Fork of the Catawba River then back up the hill, because doing that climb each morning would give a bantam athlete endurance. To a “really, really, small” ninth-grader – short, maybe 120 pounds – sports such as football and basketball weren’t suitable, though he did do football in 1962-63.

So Wyatt ran track and devised training schemes to push his limits and shrink his times.

“Track wasn’t taken very seriously then. It was just another sport for those not playing baseball. I kind of liked it that way, because we knew everybody (on the teams) from ninth grade through the 12th,” he says, “and they were more friendly toward each other. Now, sports have gotten so big, they don’t know each other.

“Coach Dick Thompson (MHSHOF, Class of 2009)

encouraged me to come out for track. I didn’t do well my 9thgrade year, so as a sophomore I switched to the mile and 880 and started having some success at it. I had decent speed, but I wasn’t a very good high-jumper or hurdler, which I tried as a 9th-grader, and on sprints, I got out-run. So I tried the mile on a whim.”

Wyatt measured a course in his backyard – he calculated 7 laps around the yard would equal a mile – and trained there.

“When I wasn’t getting faster, I’d get up before school and started running on the road. That’s what gave me my endurance and it led me to believe that hill running and road work was good for developing distance runners.”

Wyatt, 72, of Stanley turned that self-discipline into a successful track career as a record-setting athlete and a coach, which led to his induction in the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame.

He set a school record for the mile – at 4:34 – his senior year at Stanley High, when the school won the Little 7 Conference championship, and also was all-conference in the 880 and mile run, winning both at the conference meet.

He segued to Gaston College – but college intentions were redirected by the military, which escorted him on a tour of several foreign countries, earned him a Purple Heart, and sent his higher education on an escapade that concluded with a bachelor’s degree in Engineering Technology in 2003.

“I’ve been in the military half my life and college the other half,” he says. “When you’re working full time, you can’t go to school full time, so you have to take it a class or two at a time.”

Wyatt’s college credits were transferred many times, to accompany his many moves. “I got talked into it (enlisting) by a man in dress blues. They sent out postcards, and I said I was interested in their 120-day delay program and he came to the house talked to me directly” he says. “They had a way of persuading people who may have been a little reluctant, but he told me stories and I was hooked. I graduated May 27 and my first day at Parris Island was June 6, in the Marine Corp. All the others went to the beach and enjoyed themselves; I joined the military.”

He served 35 years – in Vietnam, Desert Storm, at ReinMein Air Base in Germany, in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Operation Iraqi Freedom, for a total of 26 military ribbons and medals. He left the service in 2005, the day before his 60th birthday.

His Purple Heart was awarded following Operation Iraqi Freedom. “I had a bad fall during the night. I blew out my right knee and my back when I stepped into a ditch in pitch black darkness,” he says.

He’s proud to have served his country, though the two-anda-half months in Vietnam were uncomfortable. “It was a nasty country, and there was trouble everywhere you looked,” he says. “I was there during the early part of the war and most of the action was against snipers and IEDs (improvised explosive devices), things set up to injure us when we were out on patrol. They were using our own sea ration cans for devices and pull the pin from a grenade to activate it in the can. They were pretty ingenious.”

Wyatt kept his desire to run as an adult and managed to complete 21 marathons and other races – 5K, 10K, halfmarathons. He set personal best times as an adult in the 1 mile at 5:10; 5K at 18:04; 10K at 37:50; 10-mile at 1 hour, 4 minutes; and marathon at 3 hours, 14 minutes.

At age 44, he ran a 5:10 mile in a Charlotte event called the Tryon Street Mile, featured on the television show “PM Magazine.” It was there that he met one of his biggest influences in running, Jim Beatty. “He was the first person to break the 4-minute mile (3:58.9), and he was from Charlotte and was there when I ran the 5;10,” he says.

Wyatt says it wasn’t his plan to take his talents to East Gaston High School as a track coach, but plans have a way of changing. “Coach Robert Keaton was there, and I took my son (Rodney) by and it was grades 10 through 12 back then, and I was trying to get my son interested, and Coach Keaton said he’d love to have him,” Wyatt, who also has two daughters, says of his East Gaston initiation in 1983. “And he says, ‘I heard you were into running. Could you help us out?’ And I did for about two days, then they kept adding days, and by the end of the year I was a full-time volunteer coach.”

By fall, he also was the cross country coach. He coached from 1983 to 2014. His boys teams won six conference championships, and his girls teams won five. In 1985, his boys were undefeated.

This past May, Wyatt was asked to help out at an East Gaston track meet – a lure to get him on the premises, where the track was dedicated in his name.

It was a plan concocted a few months before, when East Gaston Principal Jennifer Reep and Athletic Director Tom Adams began discussing naming the track for Wyatt. Mount Holly Middle was hosting the Division I meet, and middle school coach Michael Nixon lured Wyatt there, asking him to help out. A plaque was unveiled, with Wyatt’s name.

His picture made the local paper

But for all the road training, the races, the military service and the coaching, Wyatt says his biggest accomplishment is none of the above.

“I would have to say it’s just being a leader in my church,”

Wyatt says. “It’s the year I was Church Council president (at Christ Lutheran in Stanley). On the top of my list is God, and everything else falls under that. My family would be second, and everything else falls somewhere under that.” ■

— By Kathy Blake

Career Highlights

• Played football for Stanley High 196263

• Ran track 1960-63; All-Conference in 1963

• Set a school record in the mile run at 4:34

• Ran 21 marathons as an adult, along with 10Ks and 5Ks

• East Gaston track coach 1983-2014, numerous conference championships

• East Gaston teams set numerous school records during his coaching tenure

• Served in the military: Marine Corps, Army National Guard, Air National Guard

• Earned 26 military ribbons and medals

• Awarded the Purple Heart

Grant Hoffman Jr.

Sometimes, the path we choose becomes the road less traveled, and the detour is better than the original plan.

Grant Hoffman’s sports experiences in high school began a series of changes of direction that led him through college and championship seasons, to professional success in Florida and back to North Carolina, away from the games he enjoyed.

As a teenager, Hoffman wanted to be a football player, maybe be good enough for college, but he was tinkering with golf, too, though not with any intention of making it a job.

Hoffman was East Gaston High School’s starting quarterback from 1975 through 1977 and was second-team All-Gazetteland in 1977, an award given by the Gaston Gazette newspaper to recognize top athletes. He was all-conference honorable mention as a senior, and a few colleges took notice, without offers.

“I was probably better at football than golf. I loved football and always looked forward to it,” he says. “If I

could have gone to college and played football, that’s what I would have done, but I was too small – only about 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds. I really didn’t start focusing on golf until about two years after high school.”

He played golf at East Gaston, along with football, and was all-conference all three years and WNCHSAA individual champion in 1976, the year EGHS won the team golf title.

With his football road ending and no one recruiting him for golf, Hoffman turned to the University of North Carolina-Charlotte for a year, where he played golf as a walk-on in 1978 – well enough to get a phone call from Randy Hines, the coach at Limestone College.

“I had kind of dropped out of school for a little while, then I got a call from the golf coach at Limestone. He had heard about me and asked if I would be interested in coming to school there, so I guess he caught me at the right time,” Hoffman says. “From that time, when he offered me a golf scholarship, that’s when I began my golf career. Randy really encouraged me and helped me, and he was one of the biggest influences in my whole life. I had a lot of folks who influenced my life, and that’s really important. But Randy had the biggest influence as far as golf because he challenged me to set goals and to achieve those goals. And I was fortunate to meet all of them except one, which was to win an individual national championship. I came close. I finished third one year.”

Hoffman was all-conference four years – 1978-81 – and conference player of the year in 1979 and 1980, the two seasons he also won the conference individual title.

He was a tournament individual champion five times at Limestone, and his team finished seventh nationally in 1979, third in 1980 and won the national championship in 1981 at the Saginaw Valley Golf Course in Bay City, Mich. Hoffman turned pro.

“I won the Gaston County Amateur title two years in a row (1986, 1987) and went pro in 1991. I played on the mini-tour, and I just got married and we moved to Orlando and I planned to go to qualifying school the next year,” he says. “I was fortunate enough to win one tournament, and won some money in some others.”

The road ahead looked good this time. Until it hit another curve.

“I developed an elbow problem, a severe case of tendinitis in my left elbow to the point where I literally could not hold onto a golf club,” Hoffman says. “The orthopaedic doctor said to rest it a couple of weeks, but it never did heal. My elbow just couldn’t hold up under the

pressure of hitting a golf ball, so in a fortunate way it led me to what I’m doing now.”

Hoffman, 57, is pastor of Center Cross Baptist Church in Asheboro. He and his wife, Sonia, have three sons, Garret, Colson and Joshua.

“I majored in business management in college, and shortly after I came back from Florida and moved back to Charlotte, I was offered my old job back as assistant pro at Rolling Hills Golf Club (in Monroe) and worked there several months,” he says. “Then one evening, during a crusade from Bailey Smith at First Baptist of Indian Trail, I felt a very strong urge to go into the ministry. I went and talked with my pastor.”

This time, he knew where the road was supposed to lead. Hoffman attended Southeastern Theological Seminary for three years and received his Masters of Divinity. The former quarterback and golfer found his calling.

He still holds the course record at Glen Oaks Golf Club in Maiden – a 61 – and says he’s shot 62 and 63 several times. He’s passed his talent to his son Colson, who also has a low of 61, though he isn’t pursing the sport competitively.

Being inducted into the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame makes Hoffman’s road come full-circle.

“I’m honored to even be considered, to be quite honest,” he says. “There’s no possible way that I would even be considered if it weren’t for the people who had an impact on my life. I’m very grateful.” ■

— By Kathy Blake

Career Highlights

• Starting quarterback at East Gaston 1975-1977

• Second-team All-Gazetteland 1977

• All-Conference Honorable Mention 1977

• East Gaston golf team 1975-1977

• All-Conference in golf 1975-1977

• Won the WNCHSAA tournament as an individual, 1976

• Won the WNCHSAA tournament as a team, 1976

• Gaston County amateur champion, 1986-87

• All-Conference at Limestone College, 1978-1981

• Conference Player of the Year, 1979-1980

• Conference individual champion, 1979-1980

• Named All-American for golf

• Won 5 individual college golf tournaments

• Won national championship (team) for golf, 1981

• Member of Limestone College Hall of Fame

• Played professionally after college, winning one mini-tournament

east Gaston’s 1977 Golf team

To win a state championship in golf, the secret formula for East Gaston High School was to throw a little of everything into the mix and see what came about.

The 1977 team, which won the WNCHSAA title, was led by a junior who’d rather play football, a former football coach who coached basketball, a girl who played off the men’s tees and a group of guys – including one comedian – who had to leave the county just to practice.

Together, they compiled a three-year record of 69-3 against the state’s toughest opponents and formed a bond that Coach Larry Armstrong still pulls memories from, 40 years later.

“I inherited a bunch of really good golfers. And I didn’t have but one rule,” he says. “They couldn’t play on my team unless they could beat me. And they didn’t have any trouble doing that. One of those years, the guys were so good that we might have three, four, five of them who could shoot in the 60s, and they’d be mad if they didn’t break par.”

This Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame team consisted of seniors T.R. Reid, Mark Lingerfelt, David Boaz, Jimmy Buff

and Darren Emmett, and underclassmen Royce Hawley, David Craig, Grant Hoffman, Jeff Shirley, Jeff Williams, Donna Green and Mark Stroupe.

Armstrong, also the school’s basketball coach and a former football assistant at Stanley High School, says the team’s strength wasn’t what opponents would expect.

“The team that won the championship, I didn’t have the best team overall but I had the best workers,” Armstrong says.

“Most of the guys, except Grant and David Boaz, didn’t hit the ball that far, but they were accurate with chipping and putting, and that’s what would rattle the other teams so bad. The other teams would hit the ball long off the tee, and we might not but we’d chip and putt and beat them. And that’s because they practiced in the offseason.”

Practices were held at Pine Island Country Club in Charlotte and Green Meadows in Mount Holly. “Pine Island probably made the biggest difference in their game. Green Meadows didn’t have any sand traps, but Pine Island had it all,” Armstrong says. “The people were so gracious to let us play our matches there.”

It was common, during matches, for players to share information about their home course with those who’d never played it. And East Gaston went up against some of the state’s finest – Crest, Kings Mountain, R-S Central, East Rutherfordton, South Point. Still, sportsmanship is sportsmanship.

“One of my players, Darren Emmett, he had a way of getting on the other team’s nerves. Now, he didn’t do anything wrong, but he was funny,” Armstrong says. “We were playing Shelby at Pine Island, and Darren was big, about 6-foot-2 and 225, a big guy. And if someone hadn’t played the course before, they’d ask an opponent about the hole, and they’d tell them, exact. So the Shelby guy had a second shot on a par-4, and the guy asked Darren and Darren told him. And the guy says, ‘I don’t think it’s that far.’ So he flew it way down the fairway, way too far, and Darren says, ‘It’s deceiving, ain’t it?’”

Hoffman, who played quarterback at EGHS from 1975 through 1977 and college golf at Limestone before turning pro, was a team leader, even though a slight misunderstanding kept Hoffman from being a three-sport athlete.

“I asked him why he didn’t go out for basketball, told him he could have helped our team. And he said that between junior high and high school, I talked to him about being the back-up for our No. 1 point guard, and that hurt his feelings, so he didn’t go out,” Armstrong says. “He didn’t want to be a back-up. Sometimes, though, you say things so that people can prove you wrong.”

If anyone thought a girl couldn’t play a boys game, Donna

Green proved them wrong. “We didn’t have a girls team, and she wanted to play golf. She was excellent,” Armstrong says. Green, who later married and had a son, attended UNCCharlotte on a golf scholarship after graduating from East Gaston in 1978. She died in August, 2009.

“The teams I had were so gifted, and a lot of those kids belonged to Pine Island Country Club, or played a lot with their parents, and I was just fortunate to have them,” Armstrong says. “Then there’s Kevin Spittle, who was instrumental in building our golf program but wasn’t there that last year, and Lisa Campbell and Sandy Ness, who were our scorekeepers.

“After we won the western part of the state, the following year the championship became the whole state. I guess we were the outlaws. And that’s the year I gave up coaching.

“It never crossed my mind to be in the Hall of Fame. It was just a shock and a surprise. It was the best thing, though, being able to work with those young people.”. ■

— By Kathy Blake

Career Highlights

• Won State Championship, 1977

• Won Conference Championship, 1977

• Compiled a three-year record of 69-3 under Coach Larry Armstrong prior to championship

Coach — Larry Armstrong

Seniors — T.R. Reid, Mark Lingerfelt, David Boaz, Jimmy Buff, Darren Emmett.

Underclassmen — Royce Hawley, David Craig, Grant Hoffman, Jeff Shirley, Jeff Williams, Donna Green, Mark Stroupe

• Was the last team to win the Western N.C. title, the WNCHSAA, before the format was switched to NCHSAA.

• Team was made up of 11 boys and one girl

EAST GASTON GOLF TEAM of 1977

Carmen Baker

When childhood innocence collides with natural talent, and determination and persistence join in, good things happen.

Athletes in year-round sports understand: There is no offseason, your sport is something you do, not something you play and your mindset is oblivious to anything different.

Carmen Baker made that discovery at age 8.

“I just dove into a pool when I was 8 and realized that it was for me. I don’t think at that point in my juncture that I thought anything about it,” she says. “I didn’t realize that other kids weren’t doing the same things. It was just my normal, everyday life.”

Baker, 39, grew up in Mount Holly and swam competitively for the Gaston Gators throughout her childhood, was East Gaston High School’s Athlete of the Year four years running, beginning in ninth grade while still in junior high and went on to break records at North Carolina State after being recruited by several colleges. Her resulting induction into the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame is, she says, “a great honor.”

“I would say that at 10 years old I was going five days a week, after school, and when I was 13 it was six days a week and doubles in the summer,” she says. “I was efficient at multi-tasking, for sure. We went straight from school to my neighbors’ house to get a snack and carpool, then straight to practice, then homework, bath, eat, bed. Once I got to be about 13, I realized my friends were going to camp and things in the summer, but I had double practice and it was like, I get it. I’m doing something weird. My summers were in overdrive.”

Baker ’s environment consisted of the Gaston YMCA pool, or an outdoor pool or at Belmont Abbey, where she would

chisel at her times in the 200 and 400 individual medley, the butterfly, the breaststroke. At age 8, she swam fast enough to qualify for a Future Stars meet. At 10, she had four firstplace finishes in a Junior Olympics meet, and as an 11-12 age grouper, she made Junior Olympics again and the Southeast Regional Championships.

“For some reason, I always had a propensity to do butterfly. No one wanted to do it, so I had a better shot at winning,” she says. “It’s definitely something that, like it can’t be taught. I did breaststroke at that age a lot, too. At 13, you’re allowed to do a 400 IM, and I realized I was an endurance swimmer. I’m definitely a come-from-behind type of person, so I wanted to swim faster than they did at the end.”

At the State Games for her 13-14 age group, Baker was first in the 400 IM, second in 100 fly, second in 200 backstroke, second in the 200 IM, second in the 200 fly, third in the 200 freestyle and third in the 200 breast.

She was chosen for the North Carolina Select Team in 1992, a group for which only 24 females are picked.

Her high school team practiced at Belmont Abbey, and she was East Gaston’s only entry in the 4A State Championships in 1992, as a ninth-grader, and made States every year afterward. In 1995, she was named 4A State female swimmer of the year for North Carolina.

Interest came from the University of Arizona (too far away, she says), and recruiting visits and talks followed with East Carolina, UNC-Chapel Hill, West Virginia, Clemson and N.C. State, which she chose because, well, it would be something different.

“My family was all Carolina fans, and as a little kid I always asked why, and they couldn’t tell me, so I picked a rival. Duke is the rival in basketball, but they didn’t have a scholarship available,” she says. “I knew I wanted to go to a North Carolina school to be close to home if I had to be. I just loved the people at the N.C. State campus, the swimmers were awesome, the coaches were phenomenal.”

She received a 55-percent scholarship, then after breaking the school record in the 400 IM by 2 seconds her freshman season at the ACC Championship, it became a full ride. She was named All-ACC and qualified for Senior Nationals. She broke her own school record as a senior.

Now, looking back at that 8-year-old who dove headfirst into a childhood of pursing the sport she loved, Bruce and Dawn Baker’s daughter can see a different story than the one she lived every day.

“My dad was a tennis player, and he got offered money to go to school but he wanted to go into the Marines. He and my mother were my biggest supporters, but I realize today the time and the money they poured into going to these meets,” she says. “It was a huge commitment on their end, and they never said

anything about it. They were just like, what do you need? And, we’re here to support you.”

These days, Baker is an account executive and sales representative at Aramark in Huntersville, a refreshment services company that, she says, supplies more than one billion cups of coffee annually at approximately 100,000 locations in North America. When employees of everything from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses head to the break room for coffee, filtered water or snacks, chances are it came from her company. Though she’s a business person now, sometimes she looks back at her days in the pool.

She “kinda idolized” the swimmers of the day, like Janet Evans. And a girl from Charlotte, Kelly Frazer, who went on to swim at the University of Georgia. “She and I practiced together often, and she was someone I could never get in front of, so I tried to be faster,” Baker says, “because she was like the mouse you could never catch.

“And Greg Armstrong, my age-group coach, besides my parents, he was my greatest supporter, going with me on long trips like to Michigan for Nationals. He was like a second dad, always encouraging me and helping me shoot for my dreams, in a small town.

“I owe it all to him, my parents, and of course, God.” ■

— By Kathy Blake

Career Highlights

• Age 8: Top finisher in a Future Stars meet

• Age 10-under: Four 1st place finishes at Junior Olympics

• 11-12 age group: Qualified for Southeast Regional Championships and Junior Olympics

• 13-14 age group: Had a 1st place finish, four 2nds and two 3rds at N.C. State Games; had a 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th at Junior Olympics

• 15-18 age group: Won the 200 butterfly and 400 IM at State Games; qualified for Junior Nationals

• Was school MVP each year, including 9th grade while still at Mount Holly Middle

• 1992 (ninth grade): EG’s only entry in the 4A State Championships

• 1993-1995: Competed in 4A State Championships; 7th in 200 IM in ’93, 2nd in 200IM and 2nd 200 breast in ’94, 1st in 200IM and 2nd 200 breast, ‘95

• Named 4A State Swimmer of the Year, 1994

• Broke school record in the 400 IM as a freshman

• Names all-conference as a freshman, qualified for Senior Nationals

• 1999 (senior year): broke own school record in 400 IM

James ford

The boys gathered in the parking lot after class to measure distances and run sprints on the pavement, because their high school didn’t have a track and the road to championships required improvisation.

In the late 1980s, when high school track and field teams competed without classifications of 1A, 2A and so on, East Gaston High made do with car-lot workouts and borrowing yardage on the football field.

“We put the hurdles out on the grass. And we were allconference and all-state without having a track,” says James Ford, who collected numerous sprint and hurdles titles. “We practiced sprints in the parking lot. I was blessed to be on a super high school team that won championships my junior and senior year.”

Ford, 54, used that adversity, plus training help from friends in the sport, to become a record-setter at two universities, carry his work ethic into a long career in two occupations and land in the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame as an inductee. He already serves the Hall of Fame as a committee member.

His perseverance in high school led to recruiting letters from 46 colleges, he says, nearby and as far as the University of

Florida. He understood the necessity of being in the right place with the right times.

“I missed my high school prom because of State Meet when I was a 17-year-old. I had to think what my priorities were. I had to run, and I had to win,” Ford says. “When you work this hard at something, looking back I must have been crazy, but I knew it, I dreamed it, and I felt like when I walked on campus (as a freshman at High Point University) that they recruited me to win. I think I did well.”

Ford stayed at High Point one year, broke the 200-meter school record and was conference Athlete of the Year for track. He also was all-conference in the 100-meters and 200, and his 100-meter time was in the top 15 nationwide, he says.

Ford transferred to Western Carolina and red-shirted a year before helping that school build a successful program.

But his affection for running began long before passing cars in the East Gaston parking lot.

“As a kid, there was Field Day,” he says. “I realized that I was one of the fastest kids in elementary school, and I enjoyed baseball and had a real passion for baseball, but in middle school I went out for track and ran hurdles, and I ran hurdles from middle school to high school to college, and I found out I could sprint. And that became my ticket.”

Few track athletes, he says, combine sprinting with hurdles in their repertoire. “It helped with college,” he says, “because they were looking at diversification – where they could fit you in.”

He broke the Southwest Conference record in high school for low hurdles at 20:38, then two weeks later recorded a 19:67. “At the time, that was in the top three (times) in that event out of 490 schools in the state, so that made it a little special,” he says.

His best time in the 100 meters in high school, he says, was 10.5. In college, 10.36.

“I was a big-meet guy. I always performed my best in big meets,” he says. “And that’s what made the difference in my career.”

At Western Carolina, where he transferred to help build up the program, his 4x200-meter relay team’s time of 1:24.14 from the 1984 Georgia Relays remains a school record.

Ford segued his bachelor ’s degree in Criminal Justice and Political Science to a 30-year career in Mecklenburg County in education and social services. He also has another role: church pastor.

Longtime friend and former East Gaston principal Marty Starnes recognized Ford’s faith and persistence many years ago and has worked alongside him in Rotary Club and other endeavors.

“The skillset that James so clearly adopted as a high school

athlete, he carried with him to college, to his career and to his community,” she says. “Equally important, James Ford is a man of strong faith with God as his pilot. He is a dedicated husband and father.

“In 1 Corinthians, Chapter 9, Paul tells us to ‘Run your race in life in such a way as to win.’ This is truly fitting when thinking of James Ford and his impact on our community. To say that I admire him is an understatement.”

Ford was licensed and ordained into the ministry in 1990 and became pastor of Morningside Missionary Church in Mount Holly in 2000. He and his wife, Elaine, have a 12-yearold daughter, Abigail, who is getting started in track, he says, and is a Gaston Christian honor roll student.

“She was the fastest kid in fifth grade,” he says. While Abigail begins, Ford says his running is complete.

“I coach at Gaston Christian, their hurdlers and sprinters. It’s my first year,” he says. “But when I graduated college, I knew my time was done. From 1985 to today, I didn’t coach, didn’t do anything. I did all I needed to do and left it on the track. I had a great career.” ■

— By Kathy Blake

Career Highlights

• 1980 – Won school track award

• 1981 – Won school track award

• Conference record, low hurdles; Sectionals champion, low hurdles

• Broke Regionals record in low hurdles.

• Named All-State

• Named All-Conference in 100 meters, hurdles, 400 relay

• Named All-County in 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 relay

• 1982 – All-Conference in 100, 200 and 400 meters. Conference Track Player of the Year

• Broke school record, 200 meters

• Western Carolina University

• All-Conference 100, 200 and 400 meters

• Broke school record, 200 meters

• Track Award, 1985

Mount Holly SportS

www.gastonymca.org

The Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame is a 501(c)3 organization that celebrates Mount Holly’s rich sports history and supports future athletes through its work with local organizations. Classiﬁed as a public charity, we welcome your tax deductible gifts. In addition to our practice of supporting local charities, we are now funding college scholarships for deserving local students.

The mailing address for your gift is, 212 Dogwood Dr., Mount Holly, NC 28120.

Mount Holly SportS

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The Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame

In 2017

The Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame Supports these non-proﬁts.

Mt. Holly Community Relief Organization

Stuart Cramer High School Basketball

Mission Statement of the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame:

e Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame was established to honor our community’s rich sports history and to recognize the outstanding individuals and teams who have excelled over the last century on behalf of our city.

Our ultimate goal is to educate the community about the outstanding accomplishments of these individuals and teams, instill civic pride in our citizens and promote Mount Holly. Our emphasis on education has lead us to develop a scholarship program through our local high schools.

In addition to education, the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame supports charitable contributions for youth groups and local civic organizations by committing to pay out 10% of its year end balance of funds to non-pro ts. Its plans include working forward to the establishment of a permanent display of inductee sports memorabilia.