By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY —The Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Fame got a little deeper, stronger and smarter on Saturday, with seven men and two women inducted in ceremonies at the Salisbury Civic Center.

Two of Rowan’s best year-round athletes of the 1990s were welcomed as the Hall of Fame embraced Donna Carr (Salisbury basketball, track and field and volleyball) and Jeff Chambers (North Rowan football, track and field and wrestling).

Resplendent in a white suit, Carr, now a college head basketball coach at Davis & Elkins, swooped into the room, willowy and graceful, looking like she could still soar and grab a rebound.

Chambers, a volunteer coach for North Rowan football, looked like he could still wrestle an alligator, but first he would have to take off the stylish green jacket that made him look like a Masters champion.

Carr was Rowan County Female Athlete for the 1994-95 school year, while Chambers was the Male winner for 1996-97.

Carr followed up leading Salisbury’s girls to their first basketball championships with exciting days at South Carolina and Catawba and as a pro in Finland.

When Chambers was chosen for the 1996 Shrine Bowl to anchor North Carolina’s defensive line, he ended a 17-year drought for the Cavaliers. He was the first for North since Bobby Myers in 1979. The epitome of a three-sport phemon, he won three track and field state titles in the throws, and posted a fourth-place finish in the state in wrestling. At Western Carolina, he stood out in football and track. A lot of coaches believe that with a few more inches in height, he would’ve played in the NFL.

Bryan McCullough, from North Rowan’s Class of 2001, was the youngest and tallest of Sunday’s inductees. He sported a beard that gave him a regal bearing, but the memory of his teenage mid-range jump shots for the Cavaliers still lingers. He was the 6-foot-5 leader for a talented group as a senior, a 27-1 crew that was undefeated until the regional in Hickory. He was Rowan County Player of the Year that season. McCullough was a one-sport athlete, but he added to his legacy with a stellar D-I basketball career at UNC Asheville. He averaged double figures three straight seasons for the Bulldogs and had shining moments during March Madness. That proved to be a springboard to a long, strong career as a pro overseas.

North Rowan grad Jim Baker and East Rowan grad Chris Cauble were inducted on Sunday because of amazing coaching careers, although a Hall of Fame case could be made for Cauble as an athlete. He was a three-sport high school athlete who was the Mark Norris Memorial Award winner as Rowan’s Baseball Player of the Year as well as Rowan co-athlete of the year (along with South Rowan’s Bryan Overcash) for the 1984-85 school year. He was the catcher for the 1984 Rowan American Legion state champs and a standout at East Carolina, where he threw out Florida State’s Deion Sanders on a steal attempt.

Cauble assisted on East Rowan’s 1995 state champs and coached perennially stout teams at West Rowan, including a state runner-up. He followed West principal Henry Kluttz to a new school — Carson — where Cauble coached 275 wins and led the Cougars as far as the Western Regional Championship Series.

Baker was a standout basketball player at North, where his father, Hall of Famer Walt Baker, was the head coach and AD. Baker played at Catawba before embarking on a coaching journey as a Division I assistant. He finally returned to Catawba and found his calling there as the successor to legendary Sam Moir. Baker guided the Indians with class for 20 seasons. There were 344 wins and 12 championships.

One of the loudest roars of Hall of Fame Sunday came when master of ceremonies Kent Bernhardt mentioned one of Baker’s post-Catawba accomplishments outside Rowan County. His Central Cabarrus High teams went 95-1 the past three seasons. Yes, 95-1, with two 3A state titles.

Those five were the leading vote-getters from a long ballot of worthy candidates.

The Hall of Fame committee also inducts two from a “veterans” list of players or coaches whose glory days were more than 50 years ago. Those two, posthumous honorees, were Sandra Kay Somers and Harry Koontz.

Somers played in the 1950s, an era for women’s basketball that is often dismissed because many schools were small, they were segregated, and the rules were vastly different. Somers was a forward, so she was playing a half-court game of 3-on-3, with three teammates waiting to play defense on the other end of the floor.

A lot of points could be scored with that format. Landis’ towering center Melba Overcash, for instance, dropped in 102 of her team’s 107 points in a 1950 romp against East Spencer.

But Somers was obviously a talent, tall and a deadly shooter for Cleveland High School, not long before Cleveland, Mount Ulla and Woodleaf were consolidated into West Rowan. She scored 2,377 points. She had a high game of 81 points and averaged 33.5 points per game for four varsity seasons. She had a string of 10 straight 40-point games. Until Shayla Fields came along at Salisbury in the 2000s, no one in Rowan County scored more points than Somers.

Somers died three years ago at 79. Her daughter and son were on hand on Sunday to accept her Hall of Fame plaque, and her son, Scott Bost, spoke. Several of Somers’ fellow Eaglettes from the Cleveland High days also came, supporting their teammate one last time.

Bryan Duncan accepted for Koontz, who died in 1986. A Logan High (Concord) and Livingstone graduate, Class of 1937, Koontz became an iconic figure at Dunbar High in East Spencer and worked there as an educator and coach from 1947 until the school closed in 1969. The husband of Elizabeth Duncan Koontz, he taught math and P.E. served as AD and coached football and girls and boys basketball.

His best Dunbar teams were boys basketball squads. The 1959 Tigers went 22-0 and won the 2A state championship for Black schools. His 1952, 1960 and 1961 teams were state runners-up.

The Fred M. Evans Community Service Award is given annually in memory of Evans, who died in 2015, leaving a permanent legacy as a teacher, coach, mentor, administrator and community leader.

Dan Wales, president of Rowan Little League, is this year’s honoree. He has worked countless hours for more than three decades, going above and beyond the normal call of duty, to keep the league thriving. Rowan Little League’s softball program has represented the county in heart-warming fashion as far as away as Oregon, with eight teams going to the World Series since 2015. The 12U program has won two World Series championships and has been runner-up twice.

Many Little League volunteers as well as former players came to show their support of Wales.

The Horace Billings Lifetime Achievement Award winner was awarded to Tom Harrell posthumously. The award is given in memory of Billings, the Salisbury Post’s sports editor from 1948-1988. He died in 2013.

Harrell died at 98 last year. The radio pioneer was an owner of stations WSTP and WRDX for many years. If you’re wondering how he impacted Rowan County sports, credit Harrell with launching the careers of Hall of Fame sports broadcasters Marty Brennaman, Bob Rathbun, Doug Rice and Howard Platt, as well as such well-known personalities as David Whisenant, Wilson Cherry and Bernhardt.

Harrell’s daughter, Amy Williams, accepted the honor.

Great memories were shared, along with food and fellowship. The coaches who were inducted couldn’t have done it without great players. The players couldn’t have made it without great coaches. None of them could have made it without the unwavering support of family, especially wives and moms.

Cherry, a Hall of Fame committee member since its inception in 2001, has announced that he’s stepping down. He was saluted with a plaque and applause.

Steve Clark and Jason Parks of Salisbury Parks and Recreation organized the event. Hall of Fame committee co-chairman Dennis Davidson provided the welcome. This was the 22nd Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Fame class. Two classes (2020 and 2021) were lost to the pandemic.

Rowan County will never run out of athletes and coaches deserving induction. Nine newcomers raise the total membership to 157, but it’s still an exclusive club.

Twenty-six of those 157 were elected as contributors to Rowan County athletics in ways other than scoring touchdowns, throwing down dunks or smacking home runs. That group includes administrators, Special Olympics coaches, Little League coaches, broadcasters, writers, photographers, officials, a radio station owner and a philanthropist. Those men and women have been honored with either the Fred M. Evans Community Service Award or the Horace Billings Lifetime Achievement Award.

Thirty-four more were elected primarily for their contributions as college or high school coaches.

Subtracting 26 and 34 from 157, that leaves 97 men and women who have been elected for what they accomplished as athletes. When you’re talking about the history of Rowan County sports, 97 is not a huge number.

Thirty-five of those 97 have been elected mostly for what they did on football fields. Of those 35, 33 experienced considerable success at the college level. Seven played in the NFL. Football leads by a wide margin as the primary sport for Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Fame inductees.

McCullough is the 18th male basketball player to be inducted. With the addition of Carr and Somers, 12 female basketball players have been inducted. That accounts for a lofty percentage of the 17 women elected to the Hall of Fame as athletes.

Fifty-two athletes and coaches have been elected who were associated with Boyden, J.C. Price or Salisbury. Baker, McCullough and Chambers raise the number of North Rowan inductees to 27. West Rowan is a distant third with 13 electees. While he’s an East Rowan grad, Cauble is the first to be inducted who would be associated mostly with Carson.

If you know of a Hall of Fame candidate, make sure they have a nomination form on file with Parks and Recreation. Those forms are available online. They’re easy to fill out, but without a formal nomination, there is basically zero chance of being elected.

The Hall of Fame criteria: “The Salisbury-Rowan Sports Hall of Fame was created in 2001 to honor individuals, living or deceased, who are native to, or have worked or performed in Rowan County. The inductees must be of good character, have made significant contributions to the dimension of sports by their participation and performance and have made a positive impact on sports locally, regionally, nationally or internationally.”

“Worked or performed in Rowan County” has included some coaching fixtures at Catawba and Livingstone, but it has not included Catawba or Livingstone athletes who came to Rowan for a four-year stay and then moved on. Even Dwight Durante and Ben Coates are not in the Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame committee always has taken the position that Catawba and Livingstone already have their own halls of fame.