By Gaylen Duskey
realfang@citlink.net
The question several people had last week was "When did Calhoun last win at Clay
County?"
Jay Bennett of the Parkersburg News and Sentinel contacted me asking such a
question. I had to tell him I honestly didn't know but if Calhoun had ever
won at Clay I was sure it was during the Wayne Underwood era.
But last Friday's game came and went - and by the way rendered the question
moot since the Red Devils smashed Clay 50-7 - and nobody still knew when a Calhoun win at Clay may have happened - until Monday.
That's when Calhoun High School teacher and local historian Bob Bonar
announced the results of his research work.
The answer? Calhoun last won at Clay in 1960 - during the Wayne Underwood
era - when the Red Devils posted a 21-13 victory. Or, at least that was the
answer before last Friday night.
But did you ever wonder about Clay? Calhoun beat the Panthers in 2002 (14-0
at Mount Zion) but before that it seemed the Panthers owned the Red Devils.
And, sure enough the records bore that out.
But records are sometimes misleading. For instance the Calhoun-Clay series
stands at 20-20.
Calhoun first played Clay in 1924 (the school's second year of existence)
and did a good job by shutting out the Panthers four straight times in the 20s.
Then the series became dormant until 1952 and continued through 1961.
There was a two-game set in 1969-70 and then the teams played again from
1979 through 1992.
The series resumed in 1995 and continues today.
So why does it seem as if Clay has owned Calhoun?
Prior to 1970 the Red Devils had a 13-2 record against Clay and
one of those wins came when the teams split the two-game series they had in
1969-70.
Since then Clay has a 17-8 record against Calhoun, ergo the
perception of Clay's total dominance.
This was a great bit of sports research by Bonar, but it made me wonder about
other series.
For instance how did Calhoun do against its biggest ever rival - Spencer. Or,
how have the Red Devils done against Spencer Lite - Roane County? Or
Ravenswood? Did Ravenswood always own us?
Then what about Calhoun's all-state players?
I know three of our first four or five all-state players were centers - Dick
Sturm, Donnie Price and Jake Westfall.
But what about our other all-staters?
Who were they? When did they play?
What about the old guys? When they played there was one all-state team and
it was very hard to make that team. Who should have been an all-state player
but wasn't because the media picked the big city kids ahead of the rural
kids for those spots?
What is Calhoun's overall record? Has it won 200 games? Or 300 games? How
close are we to 500 wins?
And that's just football.
What about our other sports?
Can you believe that Calhoun County had played high school basketball for 80
years before it finally made it to the state tournament a couple of years
ago?
Or that it has had two (as far as I can tell) all-state players?
We could go on and talk about the wrestling program or the baseball team or
the cross country team.
Or in women's sport how many people know that Calhoun had a women's team
back in the 1920s-30s that was pretty good? Not many I'd guess.
There are also records and honors that need to be handed out for the distaff side.
Then what about the athletes from Calhoun County that made a name for
themselves outside of high school? We've had some tremendous archers
throughout the years and recently we have had some world-class mountain bike
racers.
And years ago Dell Burns, a Calhoun native, played professional
baseball in the Reds organization.
We have a lot of people who have made a name for themselves in Calhoun
sports history and it is time we pulled together the records and the honors
in one place.
What I am proposing is that we form a Calhoun Sports Hall of Fame in
conjunction with the Wayne Underwood Museum.
I would call it the Calhoun Sports Hall of Fame and make Wayne Underwood its
premier member and the facility's namesake.
Then I would have a charter hall
of fame class that would be inducted along with Wayne Underwood the first
year.
I would have a banquet and get bronze plaques for each inductee.
This needs to be done and it needs to have community input.
So what do you think? Who would you recommend (please send an e-mail to me
realfang@citlink.net and let me know.
I would like to see such a thing come to fruition because it is time we
started recognizing our own and finding glory in our sports history.
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