By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
Basketball standout Woodrow Boler, successful baseball coach Jim DeHart and Emmy-winning broadcaster Bob Rathbun were inducted into the Salisbury-Rowan Sports Hall of Fame in ceremonies held at the Seth Murdoch Auditorium on Saturday.
The Class of 2009 is the Hall’s ninth class. Forty-nine men and women who impacted local sports have been inducted.
The key numbers on DeHart are 368 Rowan County American Legion victories in 11 seasons and 10 grandchildren.
DeHart was introduced by Mike Cline, whose son, Matt, was a catcher on the 1996 Rowan American Legion team that was one of DeHart’s finest. That team didn’t win the state championship, but it won the Southeast Regional as the host team, ventured to Oregon for the World Series and won 41 games.
DeHart’s 1993 Rowan squad, with Keith Knight driving in 68 runs and Tim Still whacking 26 doubles, won 47 times and captured the state championship.
“Take ’em out, DeHart” was advice frequently offered by the paying customers at Newman Park. He liked to let his pitchers work out of character-building jams, and things usually worked out OK. His teams won 75 percent of the time, although he deflected the credit to his players and assistants.
“I’m just thankful I had the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of some very talented young men,” DeHart said.
Playing for coach Bob Pharr, Boler was outstanding at Salisbury High. His junior and senior seasons, the Hornets were 44-10 and won back-to-back NPC championships. He was Rowan County Player of the Year as a junior in 1979. As a senior, he averaged 17.7 points a game, including a 37-point outburst against Asheboro in the regular-season finale. He played in the East-West All-Star Game.
Boler played at James Madison three seasons. He was mostly a reserve, but he started nine times for the Dukes and scored 212 points. As a sophomore, he lifted JMU to a 47-45 victory against Virginia Commonwealth with a late bucket. As a junior, he had 17 points and nine rebounds in a strong outing against Maine.
Boler returned home for his senior year, played at Catawba for coach Sam Moir and helped the Indians win 19 games. He averaged 12.6 points and 6.9 rebounds. Both figures were second on the team. He scored 23 points to help beat Pfeiffer in Misenheimer.
Boler has been employed by Phillip Morris for 25 years. He’s missed one day of work in that span and gives credit for his exemplary work ethic to his mother and five sisters.
Fans at Newman Park were pretty sure Rathbun had gone off the deep end. He was the wide-eyed youngster sitting in the boxseats and broadcasting games to an imaginary audience without a microphone. He was throwing in commercials, station breaks ó the whole nine yards.
Rathbun was fascinated with local station WSTP’s sports coverage in the mid-1960s. He called the station one day to say he liked what they were doing. Instead of telling him to have a nice day or advising him to get lost, a fellow named John Bolcer asked Rathbun if he’d like a tour of the station.
After that, he started hanging out at WSTP, emptying trash, doing whatever needed doing. When he met his hero, WSTP play-by-play man Marty Brennaman, Brennaman didn’t brush off the eager kid. Instead, he asked if he’d like to keep stats. Rathbun was soon crunching numbers for college, high school and Legion games and soaking up knowledge from coaches such as Moir and Joe Ferebee.
Rathbun was 12 years old in the summer of 1967 when Brennaman called him over and said, “Hey, kid, it’s time for your debut.” Brennaman handed him the microphone.
Rowan hit three homers that entire summer. In his half inning, the home seventh, Rathbun called one of them, a shot by Joey Brown over the right-field fence.
Brennaman, who had been waiting weeks to announce a home run, was dismayed. Rathbun was hooked for life.
The rest is broadcasting history.