From the Ballfields to the Coalfields

By Richard Boyd

I have written many stories I will always treasure which began during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Some of these stories I would tell to my friends, and they would say, "You need to write a book about that!" I am certain they were not serious, but I thought, Why not? There were some crazy things that happened in a lifetime of experiences. To meet so many legends, I had to be there at the right place and at the right time.

I have written many stories that have educational and historical significance. Most of the stories are intended to have humor with no harm intended to anyone.

From the Ball Fields to the Coalfields is written to be nonfiction, although some stories are hard to believe. The lifetime of experiences mostly occurred in three regions of Virginia and some in Concord, North Carolina. The three regions in Virginia were the coastal tidewater area, the Shenandoah Valley, and the coalfields of far southwest Virginia. The people involved are friends, family, teachers, coaches, pro-athletes, my baseball teammates, and so many wonderful kids that I taught or coached.

Although my book may be considered as an autobiography, it is more about people that the reader would enjoy hearing about their accomplishments rather than my own. During the time I wrote From the Ball Fields to the Coalfields, which started in 2001 until the present time, there were changes in people's lives such as a professional athlete or a coach changing jobs in some cases. Also, there were some people that I wrote about who are now deceased. Some of these occurrences are not mentioned, although the people who have passed away are in the section on "IN MEMORY OF." The book is written over a twenty-year period but as chronological as possible with changes in people's occupations and awards, such as a National Hall of Fame Award to basketball coach Lefty Driesell. Please refer to chapter 32, "LEFTY."

Before my time on the ball fields, the book covers my grandfather's part in helping with the Great Depression and an early part of my family in Concord, North Carolina. The period covers a period about being a World War II child, gangs of the fifties, school and amateur baseball, glory years of sports by way of radio, how army and college life was over fifty years ago, and how it was to be a teacher and coach for most of the period beginning in the early 1960s until 2010. Racial equality is one of America's top issues. Chapters 20, 22, 23, and 27 demonstrate how far our nation has gone to be equal, but we still have a way to go. The chapters stress my involvement with African American treatment before Dr. Martin L. King's speech about freedom.

If I would have fulfilled my childhood dream and made it to the Major Leagues, then I would not have the nostalgic stories about my family, childhood friends, teaching and coaching friends, and those thousands of kids who are in my book, From the Ball Fields to the Coalfields.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638812227

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From the Ballfields to the Coalfields

Richard Boyd

Copyright © 2022 Richard Boyd

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-63881-221-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63881-222-7 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Dedication

PRELUDE

INTRODUCTION

PHILOSOPHY AND BACKGROUND

1

DEPRESSION YEARS: MY HERITAGE WITH GRANDMA AND GRANDPA

2

THE MOVE TO PORTSMOUTH

3

ALEXANDER PARK DURING WORLD WAR II

4

EARNING MONEY

5

COWBOY MOVIES

6

BAD GANGS FROM ALEXANDER PARK

7

THE GANG'S REUNION

8

OTHER MOMS OF ALEXANDER PARK

9

ALEXANDER PARK BAPTIST CHURCH

10

JESSE'S CANDY AND PUFF SHOWING HIS STUFF

11

FROM SNOWBALLING TO THE MOVIES

12

PHIL'S GRILL

13

WALLACE STORIES

14

BASEBALL: THE EARLY YEARS

15

COACH THOMAS

16

COACH WELDON

17

AMERICAN LEGION BASEBALL

18

GLORY DAYS OF FOOTBALL AND BASEBALL BY WAY OF RADIO

19

MY TIME WITH THE WILBURNS

20

BROTHER BILL, THE COLONEL

21

ARMY BASIC TRAINING 1957

22

NORFOLK CITY LEAGUE

23

BARNSTORMING

24

THE COUNTY LEAGUE AND THOSE HARRISONBURG ACS

25

PLAYING BASEBALL AT FREDERICK

26

EAST CAROLINA

27

EARLY YEARS OF TEACHING

28

JERRY, CHASPER, AND RONNIE

29

COACHING BASKETBALL AND BASEBALL AT CHURCHLAND

30

MIDDLE SCHOOL STORIES

31

WOMAN OF GREAT COURAGE

32

BEING A VISITING TEACHER

33

LEFTY

34

HIGH SCHOOL COACHING FRIENDS

35

BASKETBALL CAMPS FEATURING OUTSTANDING COLLEGE PLAYERS AND COACHES

36

RUNNING MARATHONS

37

FRIDAY NIGHTS

38

LIFE IN THE COALFIELDS

Conclusion

References

About the Author

Dedication

Wives:

Barbra Boyd

Died on May 6, 1993

Thirty years of marriage

Kareen Boyd

Died on June 6, 2009

Thirteen years of marriage

And to my son, Michael.

In Memory Of

Barbra Boyd (Chapter 30)

Kareen Couch Boyd (Chapter 37)

Colonel Bill Boyd (Chapter 19)

Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts (Chapter 1)

C. W. Rowland (Chapter 19)

Wallace Coggins (Chapter 12)

Jesse Wiggins (Chapter 10)

Coach Larry Weldon (Chapter 15)

Coach Tom Fletcher (Chapter 33)

Phil Sideman (Chapter 10)

Mr. and Mrs. Roger Jensen (Chapter 8)

Henry Neil (Chapter 7)

Dorthy Sheppard (Chapter 7)

Lew Warrne (Chapter 16)

Ashby Shifflett (Chapter 29)

Doug Jughead Browning (Chapter 16)

David Ames (Chapter 16)

Roscoe Burgess (Chapter 23)

Jeff Davis (Chapter 26)

Ronnie Ward (Chapter 27)

Bula and Jim Harris (Chapter 8)

Moses Malone (Chapter 32)

Randy Michie (Chapter 24)

Kent Knupp (Chapter 37)

PRELUDE

I have written many stories I will always treasure which began during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Some of these stories I would tell to my friends, and they would say, You need to write a book about that!

I am certain they were not serious, but I thought, Why not? There were some crazy things that happened in a lifetime of experiences. To meet so many legends, I had to be there at the right place at the right time. I have written many stories that have educational and historical significance. Most of the stories are intended to have humor with no harm intended to anyone.

From the Ball Fields to the Coalfields is written to be nonfiction, although some stories are hard to believe. The lifetime of experiences mostly occurred in three regions of Virginia and some in Concord, North Carolina. The three regions in Virginia were the coastal tidewater area, the Shenandoah Valley, and the coalfields of far southwest Virginia. The people involved are friends, family, teachers, coaches, pro-athletes, my baseball teammates, and so many wonderful kids that I taught or coached.

Although my book may be considered as an autobiography, it is more about people that the reader would enjoy hearing about their accomplishments rather than my own. During the time I wrote From the Ball Fields to the Coalfields, which started in 2001 until the present time, there were changes in people's lives such as a professional athlete or a coach changing jobs in some cases. Also, there were some people that I wrote about who are now deceased. Some of these occurrences are not mentioned, although the people who have passed away are in the section on IN MEMORY OF. The book is written over a twenty-year period but as chronological as possible with changes in people's occupations and awards such as a National Hall of Fame Award to basketball coach Lefty Driesell. Please refer to chapter 32, LEFTY.

Before my time on the ball fields, the book covers my grandfather's part in helping with the Great Depression and an early part of my family in Concord, North Carolina. The period covers being a World War II child, gangs of the fifties, school and amateur baseball, glory years of sports by way of radio, how army and college life was over fifty years ago, and how it was to be a teacher and coach from most of the period beginning in the early 1960s until 2010.

Racial equality is one of America's top issues. Chapters 20, 22, 23, and 27 demonstrate how far our nation has gone to be equal, but we still have a way to go. The chapters stress my involvement with African American treatment before Dr. Martin L. King's speech about freedom.

If I would have fulfilled my childhood dream and made it to the Major Leagues, then I would not have the nostalgic stories about my family, childhood friends, teaching and coaching friends, and those thousands of kids who are in my book: From the Ball Fields to the Coalfields.

INTRODUCTION

When I think of a legendary coach, I think of coaches who won enough games to be considered as Hall of Fame coaches. I have read books written about Bear Bryant, Vince Lombardi, Adolph Rupp. Bobby Knight, Coach K, and other legends. I have not read a book about the teaching and coaching experiences of anyone at the middle or high school level.

When I think of a teacher and coach who did not have fame or fortune from his career, I think of so many of my fraternity friends and myself. Many of my friends had some of the experiences that I encountered. The book reveals many of their experiences in the chapter HIGH SCHOOL COACHING FRIENDS.

The chapters reveal a lifetime of different stories besides teaching and coaching. The PRELUDE mentions when the events chronologically took place. During my young life, I was on a baseball team that faced Willie Mays and Catfish Hunter. Both of these stories are in the chapter on Barnstorming. At the age of eighteen, I saw Elvis Presley perform at age twenty-one. Elvis was in Norfolk at the old Center Theater in Norfolk. The arena held only three thousand people.

The place was filled with mostly screaming youngsters in attendance.

I was fortunate to work as a counselor at basketball camps where I met some of the finest coaches and players in America. Most noted would be Lefty Driesell, Ralph Sampson. Moses Malone. John Lucas, Chris Mullen, and Coaches Dean Smith and Morgan Wooten. As a baseball player, I played with or against players who made it to the majors other than Hall of Famers Willie Mays or Jim Catfish Hunter. I have been a lifetime friend of former Pittsburgh Steeler receiver J. R. Wilburn who played there from 1967 until the early seventies. J. R. is in the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

During my junior year at East Carolina University, John F. Kennedy gave a motivational speech on the campus lawn, and I somehow shook his hand as he left in the motorcade. He gave this speech in the spring of 1960 and won the presidential election in the fall. On that day, this great young man did not say, It is not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. He did say it later, but he may have well said it speaking that day. His speech was that good.

It seemed I was in the right place at the right time to have contact with or seen so many well-known people, mostly from the twentieth century. Being raised on the baseball fields and choosing teaching and coaching for a career gave me numerous experiences to put into writing.

I feel the people you were raised with and how you were raised will help set the foundation for anyone. I was raised poor in a housing project but was surrounded by people who cared. This is why there are stories about family and friends who influenced my life. This also includes the kids in school who we as teachers and coaches can all learn from when we just listen. It did take a few years teaching and coaching middle and high school kids for me to learn how important it is for them to be heard. I am proud to have written stories about them. Some of these thousands of kids that I taught or coached are now in their late sixties. I hope they have the good memories that I do which have lasted nearly a lifetime.

PHILOSOPHY AND BACKGROUND

When I started writing this book in 2001. I was extremely active in education and continued until 2010. During this era, I coached football and basketball, and although being retired, I had some very memorable experiences to share. I also came out of retirement to teach two years as a full-time teacher at Ervinton, Virginia, High School and Manteo, North Carolina, High School.

I began coaching high school football and baseball in 1963 for Frank Cox High School in Virginia Beach until 1966. In 1967–68, I coached junior varsity and varsity football for Churchland High School in Chesapeake, Virginia. During the spring, I was the varsity baseball coach. After leaving Churchland in 1968, I became Assistant Principal at John Myers Middle School in Broadway, Virginia. I decided to go back into coaching the following year and continued my career in coaching. I, therefore, kept adding on to my number of years as a high school and middle school coach. During my career, it was amazing the number of teams I helped coach or coached by myself.

I coached either as a head or assistant coach in baseball, basketball, and football for eighty-one different teams. Many years, I was an assistant coach in varsity football and basketball and the middle or junior varsity coach during the same season for many years which is the reason for so many different teams.

I also spent thirty years as a full-time teacher and seventeen as a substitute and visiting teacher. Later, I helped coach Broadway Virginia high school in varsity football from 1970 until 1990, missing only four years. I also coached the John Myers Middle School basketball during that time period and was the junior varsity baseball coach for three years. I coached one or two sports almost every year during the 1970s, 1980s, and from 1996 until 2010. I also coached at least two sports in some of the 1960s. By 2010, I had forty-three years in as a coach and teacher which included as a sub and visiting teacher. I missed four years of coaching during the early nineties because of my wife's health. Please refer to chapter 30.

When I first began my educational career, I did not realize the impact that educators have on the life of a child and their future. I did learn that the Latin term loco parentis did mean taking the place of parents. On the other hand, I may not have been their hero, and some only remember my bad jokes, but I feel the majority did know what the word respect meant. Taking the time to emphasize manners, values, and morals is more important than teaching academic and athletic skills because without these social attributes, other skills will not get you anywhere

It is my opinion after teaching and coaching thousands of students that boys and girls could care less who teaches them as long as the teacher gives them the knowledge they need, and the teacher demonstrates an interest in their lives. Therefore, if you are eighty or twenty-five years of age, Black, white, red, or pink, male or female, it really does not matter to the majority of kids as long as you totally educate them and show you care about them as a human being.

Youngsters today live in a different kind of society filled with drugs, violence, the Internet, cell phones, video games, and lack of home discipline. Kids from one generation to the next have not changed, but society has. However, kids will always want attention and discipline. Teachers and coaches most assume that role more than ever.

I do not know why I chose teaching and coaching as a profession. However, I can tell you that my background had a great deal to do with it. I was raised on the sandlot football and baseball fields with other housing project boys. My fantasy was to play professional baseball. After starting only my senior year in high school, I realized that was never going to happen. I thought someday, if I could not make it as a pro baseball player, then maybe I could coach baseball, football, and maybe basketball. Through hard work and determination, those dreams came true.

Since I played more baseball competitively in high school and later in college, the game taught me how to have self-discipline, sportsmanship, character, and respect for the game and my competition. Actually, this is what life is about, and besides the academics of teaching, it was my goal as a teacher and coach to make certain that each student athlete uses his or her sport as a tool to be better people before they were better athletes. What other profession can you enter and have the opportunity to teach youngsters values that will stay with them most forever? And they will know your name for the rest of their lives, a name which is more important than Elvis or JFK.

As a coach, I learned that how good you are as a player does matter, but more importantly, it is what he or she learns from the competition that is a carryover into later life. Most of us never had the opportunity to play professional sports, but our values from sports will last for a lifetime.

During the fall of 2006, I attended a football game, and before the contest, I ran into a young man whom I previously taught and worked with in the weight room and taught how to break up his fights. There was much anger in him, and he stayed in trouble. There was a good bet that his next school would be reform school.

The youngster was wearing a school football jersey, and I thought to myself besides trying to whip the students there, now he was into stealing. I asked him in a very polite way so I would not risk injury, Where did you get that jersey?

He replied, I am playing tonight. Some coach had saved him from maybe prison. Many times, the real winners in football do not show up on the scoreboard.

1

DEPRESSION YEARS: MY HERITAGE WITH GRANDMA AND GRANDPA

I was born the last of three boys in 1937 on Spring Street in Concord, North Carolina. I was especially proud of my middle name of Clay because when tracing my genealogy, I learned that my great-great-granddad was Henry Clay Calloway who was said to have been named after Henry Clay who is in our history books as he was a member of the House of Burgesses in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the former Kentucky governor, and who died at the Alamo. The name Calloway in the family came from my Grandmother Rowland's maiden name.

I was raised by my biological parents. My dad, William M Boyd Sr., was severely injured working on an aircraft carrier in 1943 during World War II. My father became a grand mal epileptic causing disability when I was only in the first grade. My mother, Catherine, at times had labor jobs to help support us. We were raised most of the time in a housing project during and after the war.

Picture of grandparents Sam and Bertie Rowland born in 1885

I think grandparents are worth writing about when discussing a person's heritage. My mother's mother, who was once a Calloway, married Sam Rowland. They were both born in the mid-1880s and lived in Concord. My childhood during the summers was filled with excitement when I could visit my grandparents. Grandpa had a heart of gold. He was a barber, and I received a quarter and candy after giving me a haircut. I remember many days making that long trip up Megill Street with Grandpa at my side. My grandparents did not drive as much back in the 1940s. Many people never owned a car.

Besides loving all of his grandchildren, my granddad also loved cats. He enjoyed feeding them from the table, except I believe he was not supposed to perform such a feeding. I remember Grandma catching him in the act, which I thought at the time may have been Grandpa's final day on Earth. She would say, Sam, do not feed those cats from the table!

He would stop with fear in his eyes and reply, "Yes, Bertie.''' However, Grandpa fed more than his cats; he fed many of his neighbors during the Great Depression of the 1930s, thanks to his large garden.

My grandpa must have enjoyed eating from the garden because one day, I pointed to his rather large stomach and asked him, What is that?

He replied, Mud and shit.

Despite that huge gut, he could outwalk his grandchildren. Grandpa would take us sometimes on a five-mile walk out into the beautiful Piedmont Hills near Davidson, North Carolina. We would sometimes stop to pick berries while he would seem to get lost in the dense woods. My cousin, C. W. Rowland, who always accompanied us on these adventures, told me that the reason Grandpa felt so good was because there was moonshine in those woods.

Grandpa's dad came over from Ireland, and we know the Irish have huge hearts. My grandma, I know, had Cherokee Indian, but not the goodhearted Irish blood, and I do not mean to say that Cherokees do not have a heart. But I will tell you the facts about my much-loved grandma.

Now it was a fact that nobody wanted to fool with my Grandma Rowland. Despite the fact that she was a former church secretary and helped to found the Kerr Street Methodist Church in Concord, she was not the loving hugger that most of us think of when it comes to grandmothers. Grandma replaced hugs with switches. For example, while cooking dinners, which were good as any grandmas in America and probably the world, she dared any of her grandchildren to enter her kitchen, and I did not see her grown children try to make it in there.

If you did enter, a switch would be waiting for you or for any other potential victim. Grandma would begin her Sunday dinner preparation by chopping several chickens heads off before my eyes sometimes. I was just happy I was not one of her chickens. Grandma dipped snuff, and her spitting aim was at a plant beside her chair. I witnessed that poor plant die of snuff abuse.

I also witnessed my grandma beating this mentally handicapped man in his back as she was trying to protect her grandchildren from his bad behavior around us. I was so proud of the fact that Grandma helped found the Kerr Street Methodist Church in Concord. In 2006, the church celebrated its hundredth birthday, and having the knowledge of the founders, I gave a presentation to the church honoring my ancestors, including Grandmother Rowland. My Grandmother did a lot more than just killing chickens, dipping snuff, and using switches.

My dad's mom, Grandma Boyd, was different than Grandma Rowland as she was a very sweet easygoing person who deeply cared for everyone. I am not saying Grandma Rowland did not care about us. I guess you would call it tough love. When Grandma Boyd gave me an eighty-nine-cent pair of socks for Christmas, I did not forget it. Sixty-five years later, I still remember that gift. However, her best gift to me was making certain I walked with her to the Presbyterian Church in Concord. Grandmas can make candy, and her homemade taffy candy is also something that any grandchild could never forget.

My grandparents all were born in the 1880s and died in the 1970s, but in most of our hearts, grandparents never die. I treasure every moment that I spent with them, and they will always be very special in my heart.

I cannot leave out some of my uncles and aunts when it comes to heritage. My ninety-six-year-old aunt Ruth who lives in a Concord nursing home used to give me castor oil for my stomach problems. That was sixty-five years ago, and I can still almost taste that punishment remedy.

Nothing tastes worse than castor oil, and I still ride three hundred miles to remind her of that 1940s medicine. I love her to death; however, death would be better than castor oil. Aunt Ruh was a favorite of mind, despite my being poisoned by her.

I do not want to leave out my favorite uncles. My mother's brother raised his family in the projects of Antacosta, a poverty section of Washington, DC. While visiting his family in the 1950s, he changed jobs from being a taxi cab driver to a florist. He claimed he was tired of being beaten and robbed by the professional gangsters of DC.

As the years passed, Uncle Bud became very successful with his flower business and became the owner of Capital Florist near the White House. Senators and even a vice president visited the shop. Like my grandpa or his dad, Bud had that Irish heart. Now I do not think he gave his flowers away to a vice president who I believe was later President Gerald Ford.

In 1963, my wife, Barbra, and I visited Bud, and we left the shop with free flowers. I remember riding down the Washington streets with flowers hanging out the windows, and Bud would have tied some to the top of our car had we not left very appreciative of his generosity.

Another of my mother's brothers, Uncle Herman, was a pretty tough uncle. I can remember when he was bitten by poisonous snake, and someone tried to pour whiskey over the bitten skin. I was told he instead drank the full bottle. He had told the people he was with that he did not want the whiskey wasted.

The last of my mother's brothers was Uncle Clay who at age ninety-three was dating. My uncle Clay reminded me of an old Indian chief with his Cherokee looks. A former textile mill supervisor near Durham, North Carolina, Uncle Clay was remarkable in his nineties and known for his long walks and fishing on Gaskins Lake in North Carolina.

My uncle Buck was my aunt Ruth's husband and was a navy veteran during and after WWII. He reenlisted after his first four years. He chose the navy over the other branches of service. The reason was one word: food. I recall in the mid-1990s, I was playing golf with Uncle Buck. He was eighty-six, and he shot an eighty-six. He also refused to ride on a hot July afternoon. He made his own golf clubs back when Bob Jones was playing golf before the war he helped fight.

My aunt Renell's husband, Uncle HC, survived the June 6, 1944, Normandy Invasion of WWII. I was honored by attending his funeral in 2006 in Albamare, North Carolina. It was extremely emotional to see the American flag draped over a man who survived the invasion where thousands of Allied troops were killed.

I am very proud to have the name Richard as an ancestor, Richard Calloway, who as an army colonel was killed by the Cherokee Indians fighting with Daniel Boone in Kentucky during the French and Indian War. He was descended from William Calloway who founded New London as the county seat of Bedford, Virginia. Richard was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1777. My great-aunt Ruth researched and shared this information for the family.

2

THE MOVE TO PORTSMOUTH

Because of the Second World War, most families in America went through a drastic change. When I was five years old, my family moved from Concord to Portsmouth, Virginia. The year was 1942, and America needed aircraft carriers and fast, thanks to Pearl Harbor. The carriers would come out of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard located in Portsmouth. My dad was trained to work on a carrier as a welder.

We first lived in a boarding house and then a trailer camp where we had to share the facilities with other families. At least we had running water and an indoor bathroom and shower facilities. This was not the case where I remember going to the bathroom in an outhouse.

We finally moved to in a housing project called Alexander Park. There were no school buildings in the area, no paved roads, and families were fortunate to have a car. We owned a 1939 Chevy; therefore, we were one of the fortunate families.

When I was six years of age, as I have mentioned, my father was seriously injured in an accident while working to help build an aircraft carrier in 1943. Later, this same ship, called The Shangri-La, was christened to fight in WWII. I was in attendance at the Norfolk Navy Ship Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, on February 24, 1944. Josephine Doolittle, wife of the famous Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, christened the first of three carriers built in Portsmouth. Colonel Doolittle led the bombing of Tokyo during the war. I can still remember the bottle hitting the ship before an estimated one hundred thousand people.

My dad almost paid the ultimate sacrifice by doing his part in World War II. Although he was not one of our fighting men, he was only doing his part for what happened on December 7, 1941. Many marines and sailors would come and visit with my dad after the accident. I was glad they came because I was their little buddy.

My dad's head was crushed by a crowbar above him while he was help welding the historic carrier. He would be a grand mal epileptic victim until his death at age fifty-six. When the accident happened, I was in the first grade, and my brothers were in the second and fifth