By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

GRANITE QUARRY — When Richard Kluttz was too sick to attend the 60th reunion of East Rowan’s Class of 1964, that’s when his old teammate Bob Gulledge got concerned.

“I went to see Richard about a month ago, and we shot the bull, told the old war stories for an hour or so,” Gulledge. “I asked him if he remembered the race we had.”

Kluttz remembered that day fondly and well, even though neither of the men had mentioned that foot race for the last 60 years. When they were high school athletes at East, Gulledge was pretty confident he could out-run Kluttz over a distance of 100 yards, so they went down to the football field to prove who had the better wheels. Gulledge found out it wasn’t him.

“Richard went flying by me after about 50 yards, and he was laughing, so I started laughing,” Gulledge said. “And it’s hard to run when you’re laughing.”

Kluttz, who never had a down day or a dull moment and made everyone he ever knew laugh at some point, passed away on Friday, Nov. 22, at 79. He was laid to rest on Sunday, Dec. 1, with a number of his old teammates in attendance.

East had excellent athletes in Kluttz’s era, men like Phil Robbins, the rubber-armed baseball pitcher who also could hoop. Gulledge’s football career lasted a matter of days because of two devastating injuries, but he was a whiz at baseball and basketball. They never could get Kluttz to play basketball, but he was hard to handle in baseball and football.

“Richard was a great athlete, probably the best in our class, our football MVP, and an All-State baseball player,” Gulledge said. “He could have thrown a baseball through a brick wall. He was stout and he could run.”

Gulledge recalls Kluttz batting against Catfish Hunter in an all-star game.

“Only time in his life that Richard tried to bunt,” Gulledge said with a laugh.

It all goes by fast. Gulledge remembers his family moving from Wadesboro to Granite Quarry when he was a fourth-grader. One of the first people the new kid in town met was Kluttz. They encountered each other in a Sunday school class.

“He loved sports and I loved sports — in those days, if I remember right, he was a big Brooklyn Dodgers fan — and we became good friends because of sports,” Gulledge said. “He had the best sense of humor of anyone I’d ever met.  He could make you smile. The first time I ever went to a bowling alley was with Richard. That was wild. There are a lot of good memories.”

In Pony League, they were opponents. That turned out to be a bad thing for Gulledge.

“The hardest ball I hit in three years of Pony League, Richard caught it in deep center field,” Gulledge said. “If it was in the air, Richard was going to catch it. There was no fence. He ran past some poles to get it.”

Kluttz was a sturdy halfback who made All-North Piedmont Conference, although he was left off the Salisbury Post’s 11-man all-county team as a junior and senior, probably because East was struggling mightily in football. The Mustangs were 3-6-1 both seasons and were scoring about 6 points per game, while allowing 15.

East was OK in basketball, but it was in baseball where the Mustangs were feared.

Robbins, a 5-foot-11 southpaw, pitched three high school no-hitters, including a famous one in May 1964 in which he mowed down Monroe without allowing a single fair ball to be hit. He struck out 19. He picked off a batter who had walked. First baseman Phil Bernhardt caught a foul pop up for the other out.

“Quite a few of them tried to square around and get down a bunt to break up the no-hitter,” said Dan Williams, a retired F&M Bank president who played third base for the Mustangs and went on to play at Appalachian State. “A few fouled bunts off, but no one was able to get one fair.”

Burl Morris, who had been a catcher for East Carolina’s 1961 national champions, started coaching East baseball  in 1962. Riding pitcher Dale Lefler, the Mustangs made it all the way to the Western North Carolina High School Activities Association championship game, before losing to Cherryville.

With Robbins basically hurling every game — he pitched in 17 of 19 — East made a similar run in 1964. As a sophomore standout on a senior-heavy team, Robbins struck out 157 batters in 102 innings.

“Phil was strong,” Williams said. “He could bounce back quickly from a start and pitch again.”

Credit Morris with changing East’s fan base. The Mustangs would dress at the school, but they started playing  their home games off campus in Granite Quarry at that field with lights and a grandstand that we now know as Staton Field. Instead of playing afternoon contests in front of parents and girlfriends, East started playing night games in front of hundreds of fans. The crowd for the Monroe game was estimated at 600.

Kluttz was a key man in the East lineup, as the center fielder and cleanup hitter. Gulledge was the leadoff man and second baseman. Shortstop Julian Sides and catcher Carless Lowman were other keys to a defense that was usually airtight.

After Robbins pitched a one-hitter against South Rowan in the Piedmont Championship game played at Newman Park, East took hundreds of fans, plus a pep band to Shelby to take on the Golden Lions in the WNCHSAA championship game. Shelby had Billy Champion on the mound to oppose young Robbins. Champion may have been the state’s hardest thrower.

East had two chances to score. Gulledge and Mike Bingham had hits in the first inning, but Robbins lined out to Champion to end the inning. Williams and Kluttz had singles in the seventh and moved up with steals to put  runners at second and third with no outs — but Champion, who struck out 14, fire-balled his way out of trouble. Shelby won 2-0 to end the high school baseball careers of a strong senior class.

“Champion didn’t just have a fastball,” Gulledge said. “He had a great curveball and very good control.”

In the summer of 1964, Kluttz had a solid American Legion baseball season for Rowan County. There was a game against Davie County at Newman Park in which Kluttz went 4-for-4 with a homer and four RBIs to lead a 12-6 victory.

But Kluttz loved football even more than baseball and headed to East Carolina to play that sport. When things didn’t work out for him in Greenville, he returned home to Catawba. He had some good Saturdays on the football field as a 5-foot-11, 185-pound fullback for the Indians.

Kluttz was an honor student and graduated with a degree in business administration from Catawba in January 1969. With the contacts he made as a Catawba athlete combined with his engaging personality and wit, he was a natural for the insurance business.

He was named Rookie of the Year in January 1969 by the Moose Lodge, as he was chairing committees and heading up projects even before he graduated from college.

In March 1969, Kluttz married Judy McCall, his East Rowan sweetheart who was working in the insurance field. That worked out well. They were married for 55 years.

Kluttz had varied interests, fishing, horses, gardening, once he retired, but his favorite thing to do was watching his grandsons — Mattox Henderson and McCall Henderson — play baseball for the Mustangs at Staton Field.

Richard Kluttz’s mother was named Mattox Haynes Kluttz. McCall became a family name via his marriage to Judy. That explains the unique first names that Kluttz’s grandsons carried with them to the batter’s box.

Mattox could pitch and hit and was a very good player for the Mustangs.

McCall, who was a senior on East’s 2024 state championship team, was a great one. He was in an ideal spot in a stacked lineup, hitting behind superstars Cobb Hightower and Harrison Ailshie, and he made almost every at-bat with men on base count. He produced a county-record 57 RBIs.

Beyond the baseball diamond, both of the Henderson boys were East Rowan valedictorians, so you can imagine the pride the center fielder for the 1964 Mustangs felt when he watched them play.