By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Spencer W. Lancaster coached J.C. Price football for nearly three decades and established a Rowan County record for wins (183) that still hasn’t been broken.

It’s not easy to follow a legend, but someone had to. That someone was the late Frederick Douglas Ponder. He was the next man to lead the Red Devils on the football field.

J.C. Price football didn’t match the state championships and undefeated seasons of the 1940s and 1950s, but Ponder-coached teams in the 1960s continued to win their share. They kept the winning tradition of the Red Devils alive.

The late Carl Marlin, who played for Ponder, said in an interview years ago that the Red Devils “usually played nine and won seven.”

Ponder, who became Dr. Ponder when he earned a doctorate degree in physical education from Middle Tennessee University in 1983,  joined the ranks of Salisbury coaching legends on Friday. His family was honored with a pregame dinner and was recognized at halftime of the North Rowan-Salisbury football game. Those coaching legends in Salisbury’s ring of honor are from Knox Middle School and Salisbury High. They also are from J.C. Price and Boyden, championship-winning programs that were combined into one high school in the late 1960s.

Lancaster was one of the honorees when Salisbury debuted its ring of honor for legendary coaches in 2012. He was an obvious choice, but he also was the only one of the original 11 coaches who was associated with J.C. Price.

“I know J.C. Price will never catch up when it come to honoring the legends, but there’s a need for coaches from J.C. Price  to be recognized,” said former Salisbury and Providence College basketball star and Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Famer Fred Campbell. “It’s all a process, it takes time, and I understand that, but recognizing Dr. Ponder means a lot to a lot of people. He was a class act. He took over for a legend and J.C. Price still didn’t miss a beat.”

Leading the push to have Ponder honored were Campbell and Janine Evans.

Evans is a granddaughter of the legendary Lancaster and the daughter of the late Fred Evans, who coached countless basketball victories at J.C. Price and assisted on the football field. Their efforts found support from Marvin Moore, the current Salisbury principal, and Dr. Windsor Eagle, the former principal who began the tradition of honoring coaching legends with signs at Ludwig Stadium.

“It’s important to keep the memory of J.C. Price alive, to keep that great history alive,” Campbell said. “The young men that play for Salisbury now, many of them are the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren of those J.C. Price athletes. They need to know that history. They need to know about men like Dr. Ponder. The black and gold in their Salisbury uniforms were the Boyden colors, but the red is for the J.C. Price Red Devils.”

Ponder lived an extraordinary life.

He was born in Oklahoma and served in the U.S. Army before going to college.

He graduated from North Carolina Central with a bachelor’s degree in 1956 and earned a master’s from the same school in 1960.

He met his wife, Zelda Reid, at N.C. Central. She had graduated from Aggrey Memorial in Landis. That was the family connection that brought him to Rowan County and a teaching and coaching job at J.C. Price.

One of the more famous games during his football coaching tenure at J.C. Price was a 1963 showdown with East Spencer’s Dunbar High.

The Red Devils took home the trophy awarded to the winner of that November game. Rufus Agnew led J.C. Price to a 34-14 victory over coach James Pemberton’s Tigers. That game was played on the field we now know as Ludwig Stadium.

During the 1966 football season, Ponder received an offer from St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh that he couldn’t turn down. It was an opportunity to break into the college coaching and teaching ranks, and he took it. Taking the helm of the Red Devils, who had only 26 players, in Ponder’s absence was none other than Lancaster, who was serving as the school’s athletic director.

J.C. Price and Dunbar played twice that season. The first meeting was a 12-12 tie, but J.C. Price romped 30-6 in the chilly rematch that closed the season.

Ponder returned to Salisbury in 1970 and became a fixture at Livingstone College. He was head coach in track and field and tennis, served as an assistant football coach and became the AD. During his years at Livingstone, he also served as a professor and as compliance coordinator for athletics.

His tennis teams at Livingstone were outstanding and won seven CIAA Southern Division championships in a 10-year span from 1973-82.

He stayed busy. He was appointed to the Rowan County Recreation Board of Commissioners. He was elected to NCAA Wrestling Rules Committee. He was president of the CIAA Tennis Association. He sang in the church choir. He won Teacher of the Year awards.

His last work in education was as a professor at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

Ponder was a good-humored gentleman with a distinctive laugh and had a deep love for his players and students.

For his many years of dedicated service, Ponder was elected to the Livingstone Hall of Fame in 2005.

He died at 77 in 2008. He was elected to the Salisbury-Rowan Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.