Newspapers / The Kings Mountain Herald … / Dec. 21, 1960, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of The Kings Mountain Herald (Kings Mountain, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Pat’s Peckings By MEALE PATRICK *Hickory Stick' for H. S. Athletics Schoolboy athletics is the whipping boy for the "hic kory stick” being toted by school administrators these days. You, of course, have been reading in the papers about the state school officials labeling prep athletics as the "bad apple” in the otherwise solid barrel of school activi ties. The powers-that-be say that too much emphasis is be ing put on high school sports, particularly on football, claiming that the seasons are too long, that post-season championship and bowl games should be eliminated. It seems to me that the school officials may be using athletics as their “scapegoat” In answering the question of the high number of failures in schools. They find that athletics makes-for a good “whipping boy”. But, I wonder just what effect athletics and sports have on study-habits and semester grades in school. There is the hue and the cry that athletic practice takes time from study, that travel to games takes boys out of school. Let’s investigate the claims a little closer. Practice sessions are held between the hours of 4 and about 6 p. m.—after school hours and before supper time. And how many of those athletes, and, In truth, how many of the ones not participating in athletics, would be study ing in the late hours of the afternoon? Normally, you could count them on the fingers of one hand. Youths not taking part in school athletics are dashing the highways and the by-ways in hot-rods, or playing so da-shop cowboy. At least the athletes are under school supervision during practice sessions. And, just how much class time is missed due to ath lethic trips? Very little. Night football and basketball do not cause any absenteeism. Afternoon baseball games in the spring possibly do do take boys out of one or two post lunch classes. Any of the time which is missed can be and is easily made-up. The school officials would have you believe, too, that the long afternoon practice sessions and the sports trips cause a wholesale rate of failures among the athletes. The facts hardly bear-out such a belief. Percentage of failures among athletes, actually, are lower than with the student body as a whole. Athletes are well aware that they must keep-up their grades and make passing marks or they will not be permitted to participate in sports. The driving urge to “stay eligible” for football, or any sport, might well be the factor which keeps many lx>ys above the passing level. , Kings Mountain, for instance, has not lost a standout player in any sport, due to grades-deficiency in the three years that I have been here. And, I have it on the authori ty of the coaches here that many boys have improved their grades, and their general aptitude, after becoming a member of a Mountaineer athletic team. Length of Football Season Questioned School night athletics, such as Tuesday night basket ball games, is another item of discontent among the school leaders. They figure that players and spectating students, alike, should be home studying ... or watching TV. Just one question. If the officials do cancel all Tuesday night basketball, does that also mean that all other school related activities during the week, such as PTA’s, etc., al so will be discontinued? What’s fair for one should be fair for the other. Another big beef has it that football seasons last too long. It’s a fact that some teams which happen to be both lucky and good and advance into championship rounds do play as many as 13 or 14 games a year. That’s the normal ten games for the regular schedule, then a series of playoff contests tor conference, inter-conference, and state crowns. Agreed, that’s a lot of football for 16-and-17 year olds. But, trimming football schedules to six-or-eight games is swinging the pendulum too far in the other dir ection. As a sport, foot ball must “pay it’s own way” with its gate-take. Most schools that I know anything about have a tough time making athletic-ends meet by playing their normal five games at home. Trimming a schedule to eight games, thus, would eliminate one home game, and that one contest could well mean the difference in writing the financial success of the season in red or black ink. For that matter, football, normally, is the only money making sport in high schools (and colleges, too) and as such is the "sugar daddy" for the other athletic teams. Without a good season at the gate in football, the other sports would, in turn, suffer the consequences. And, if the gate-take does not support some sort of school sports, then the burden falls on the taxpayers. This is not a case for the high school football program which often calls on a team to play a dozen or more games. I feel that a more workable plan could be devised to crown a state or Association champion without so many round about playoff contests continuing over into December. Education And Athletics Do Mix Perhaps I need to be “educated” on this next point which deals more specifically with college, than with high school, athletics. But I have a hard time trying tq “buy” the reasoning of some educators that good educational in stitutions and good athletics do not go together. These folk assert that the principal objective of a col lege or a university is education, not athletics, and the tail, so to speak, should not wag the dog. That’s all well and good, and true, and as it should be. College and universities are built and operated to dis pense knowledge and to provide access to learning. But just how does a good football team detract from the edu cational qualities of the school? Just what does winning or losing on the gridiron have to do with the t hings to be learned in the chemistry department or in the business school? . , For instance, did Notre Dame achieve any higher edu cational rank in this autumn of two football victories and eight defeats than it held during the heyday of the unde feated national championship seasons ten years ago? Admitted, Nqtre Dame might be a better school to day, and I’m sure it is, but the decline in the number of football wins had nothing to do with that improvement. By the reverse tokdn, was the University of Minn esota’s educational rating lowered this fall simply because the Gophers reversed their football record from a 1-8 mark in 1959 to an 8-1 figure and the school’s first bowl trip in 1960? , I doubt it. Minnesota grads next spring will be as well educated as the ones who drew their sheepskins last June, despite the sudden grid success. MOUNTAINEER TROPHY TAKERS — This happy quintet represent* the principals in the Lions Club annual football banquet honoring the Mountaineers last Tuesday night. Charles burns, second from left, bolds the Fred Plonk Blocking trophy, presented to him by Coach John Gamble, left. Punch Parker, second from right, and Dr. George Plank, right hold the trophy which Dr. Plank presented to the half back as the Most Valuable Player. Davidson Coach Bill Dole, speaker tor the banquet at the Woman's Club, smiles his approval in the cen ter.(Photo by Pennington Studio) Hot-Handed Grover Pair Hit 28 Points Each To Top KM Outfits BOXSCORES BOTS KINGS MOUNTAIN (47) Player Champion Alien Adams Parker . Clontz Ross Houston PC 1 7 3 4 0 1 0 FT PF 3-3 4 4-4 2-6 4-6 2 3 0-1 0-0 TP 5i 18! 8< 12: 2 0 TOTALS 16 15-23 17 47 GROVER Player Green Cash Mullinax Robinson Little Heafner Cooke Moss FG 2 1 10 0 4 0 0 1 (53) FT PF TP 2-4 4 6 5 0 3 4 0 0 1 1-2 8-10 0-1 5 6 0-0 1-1 0 0 3 28 0 13 0 1 2 TOTALS 18 17-24 17 53 Score by periods: Kings Mt. 6 16 8 17—47 Grover 14 17 19 9—53 GIRLS KINGS MOUNTAIN (35) Forwards FG FT TP Gladden 7 0 14 Weir 2 4 8 M. Plonk 6 1 13 Roberts 0 0 0 TOTALS 15 5 35 j Guards—Yates, J. Plonk, Len-; non, Arrowood, Burton, McClure,! Hendricks. GROVER Forwards Gloria Huffstetler Eaker Gail Huffstetler (54) FG FT TP 4 6 14 12 4 28 6 0 121 TOTALS 22 10 54; Guards — C. Allen, P. Allen,' Rollins, Wright. Sides, Green. Kings Mtn. 6 8 7 13—35 Grover 8 23 10 13—54 Checkers Play For Family Niqht CHARLOTTE — After a long! road trip, the Charlotte Checkers return to their home ice In the Big Dome, Wednesday night, De-' cember 21st when they will meetj the Clinton Comets. The Checkers will have their first family night. A'll children] age 15 and under will be admit I ted free v/hen accompanied by' one paid adult admission. There will be free ice skating for all af ; ter the hockey game. On the trip, the Checkers won j one game, tied one game, and lost one game. Three points were! gained by the team. . Kings Mountain High eagers ran into a pair of hot-handed Grover sharp-shooters last Fri day night in the visitors Gym and came away with a pair of defeats in the final games for the locals before the Christmas holidays. Linda Eaker of the Grover girls and Jack Mullinax of the boys team scored 28 points each in (leading the county rivals to the double victory over the Mountaineer teams. Linda’s 28 helped her club to a 54-35 win in the girls game, and Jack’s duplicate figure played the big role In the Grover boys 53-47 tri umph. The loss was the second in a row for the Kings Mountain girls ito the Grover lassies, runners-up in the Cleveland County tourna ment last year and one of the pace-setters in the new Tri County circuit. The Mountaineers’ loss squar ed the season’s set with Grover, the local lads having romped to an easy victory by a 24 point margin just four days earlier here (by a 51-27 score). Mullinax was the big differen ce in the result of the two ga mes. He tallied only seven points in the game here, but topped that figure by a 21 margin Fri night, and that proved the major item In reversing the scores be tween the county-rivals. The games with Grover were the lone ones for the Kings Mountain High teams before the holidays. The Mountaineer clubs will return to action in South west Conference games after Christmas. 'Arthur Allen, pressed into a starting post instead of a flu ridden James Robbs, was the scoring ace for the Mountaineers, hitting 18 for the game. He hit four of his seven field goals for the game in the final quarter ac he almost-personally trimme4 the Grover margin which had reached a 14 point spread at the end of three stanzas. Grover hopped into an early lead in the first period on the strength of Mullinax’s hot-hand ed shooting of his favorite run ning jump shot, He poured in four field goals in the first quar ter as the home team assumed a 14-6 lead. The little sharp-shooting sen ior sank four more fielders and two foul tosses in the second quarter, for a personal total of 18 points at halftime, and the Grover club held a 31-22 advan tage. Mullinax colled off slightly af ter intermission, with only two Gladden, Weir And Parker Set Early Point Pace For KM Teams Scaring has been sparse for the Mountaineer basketball teams in the pair of pre-Christ mas games, with three players, two girls and one boy, setting the early pace. Pat Gladden and Marlene Weir, the pair of senior forwards, have scored 26 points each to | lead the girls team, and senior Punch Parker is picking up in i basketball where he left off in football, pacing the boys club with 22 jtoints. The trio of scaring leaders also are the only players on the pair of lbcal teams averaging in the double-digits for the couple of contests with Grover last week. Pat has hit 12 field goals and two foul tosses for her 26 points, and Marlene, the team's leading scorer last year, has nine field goals and eight charity tosses. Punch has seven fielders and eight free tosses far his team leading figure of 22. (Arthur Allen is second in the boys scoring chase, with 18 , points, all racked-up in the ■ Mountaineers’ loss at Grover on last Friday night. He did not score in the opener against the same Grover dub. James Robbs scored 14 points to lead the locals in the opener, but missed the second game due to illness His 14 points is mat ched by Jerry Adams. The other two-point-makers for the girls also posted their marks in single games, Marion Plonk tallying 13 at Grover for her season’s total, and Pucky Lewis scored eight here, for her total on the year. The tailly tajjle of scoring for the Mountaineer teams in the pair of pre-holiday games: GIRLS Player FG FT TP 12 2 26 9 8 26 6 1 13 4 0 8 Pat Gladden Marlene Weir Marion Plonk Pucky Lewis TOTALS 31 11 73 BOYS Player FG FT TP 7 8 22 7 4 18 6 2 14 6 2 14 3 4 10 3 4 10 2 4 8 Punch Parker Arthur Allen James Robbs Jerry Adams Perry Champion Chester Clontz Eddie Ross TOTALS 34 28 96 ! field goals, and six foul tosses, | in the second half, but Richard I Little took up some of the slack ■ with three fielders in the third : period and Grover boosted its lead to the 14 point spread (44 30). Allen’s late effort and five points by Punch Parker, also in the fourth period, failed to trim all of the big margin. The 54 points by the Grover : girls matched the-point total j made in the game here last | Monday night. Whereas, the ; three forwards scored identical 18 points here, Linda Eaker led | the way Friday with 28 points, | hitting on 12 field goals and i four foul tosses. Normal scoring leader Mar ■ lene Weir relinquished top point honors in the loss to Pat Glad I den with 14 and Marion Plonk : with 13. Marlene managed only ’ eight ' The Grover lassies held a 31 j 15 lead at halftime. KM Gage Clubs Drill Next Week Mountaineer basketball teams are “homeless”, this week. The floor at Central High Gymnasium is being refinished and repainted and the cage clubs have a vacation from drills, as well as from school. Coaches Don Parker and Bill Bates, however, plan to recall their teams to practice sessions next week, for a full week of drills before school reopens here on Monday, January 2. Coach Parker plans morning workouts, at 10 o’clock, starting next week, and Coach Bates will conduct practice for the girls team at 2 o'clock in the after - noons. The local clubs will have near ly three weeks of drills before the next game on the schedule, which also will be the first Southwest Conference game, at Forest City on Friday night, Jan uary 13. Kings Mountain’s teams will play their first home Conference games the following Tuesday night, January 17, against Cher ryville. Fourteen Conference games, a home-and-home schedule with each of the seven other South west members, constitute the post-Christmas schedule. Lions' Speakers Leave Gridiron Half of the speakers to the Lions’ Club’s annual Mountain eer football banquets here in the past four years are now out of football coaching profession . . . by choice'. Warren, Giese, who spoke to the local gridders following the 1957 season, resigned last week end as head football coach at the University of South Carolina, to devote his fulltime to the post of athletic director at the Game cock school. He follows the lead taken last year by Paul Amen who was the speaker for the 1959 banquet. Only a few weeks after talking here, Amen resigned as head coa ch at Wake Forest to enter the banking business. Clarence Stasavich of Lenior Rhyne, the speaker here in 1958, and Bill Dole of Davidson, this year’s speaking guest, maintain the 50- percent batting average for mentors still in the profess ion. Bulldogs Cop First Conference Victory Boiling Springs — Gardner Webb College toppled Wingate 67 59 with a brilliant second half team effort here Saturday. Jerry Beane led the GW Bull dogs to their second win of the season as he ripped the cords for 26 points. The win was the first in the Conference. i Ken Baity’s 144 Tops KM Grid Career Point Total r Grid Career Scoring Leaders Here are the career totals for, ten leading Mountaineer football, scorers in recent years: KEN BAXTT Season Tear Points Sophomore 1955 12 Junior 1956 78 Senior 1957 54 i TOTALS 144 PUNCH PARKER Tear Points Sophomore 1958 12 Junior 1959 0 Senior 1960 122‘ TOTALS 184 johnnt McGinnis Tear Points Sophomore 1954 6 Junior 1955 84 Senior 1956 32 TOTALS 122 DON GLADDEN Season Tear Points Sophomore 1956 0 Junior ' 1957 42 Senior 1958 66 TOTALS 108 JIMMY KIMMELL ' Season Tear Points Sophomore 1950 24 Junior 1951 35 Senior 1952 46 TOTALS 105 DON FISHER Season Tear Points Sophomore 1957 30 Junior 1958 30 Senior 1959 30 TOTALS 90 GEORGE HARRIS Season Tear Points Sophomore 1953 0 Junior 1954 30 Senior 1955 42 TOTALS 72 MEARL VALENTINE Season Tear Points Sophomore 1953 / 0 Junior 1954 42 Senior 1955 24 TOTALS 66 CHARLES SMITH Season Tear Points Sophomore 1952 0 Junior 1953 0 Senior 1954 66 TOTALS 66 PAUL HENDRICKS Season Tear Points Sophomore 1957 0 Junior 1958 12 Senior 1959 48 TOTALS 60 Two Local Hunters Bag Bucks On Hunt Two Kings Mountain hunt ers bagged two bucks each on a recent deer hunt at the Oak land Plantation in the eastern part of the state, between E lizabethtown and Wilmington. Mrs. Joe Neisler, Jr., and Joe A. Noisier, Sr., each shot their season’s limit of two bucks on the same hunting trip. Mrs. Neisler said that her two kills were a seven-point and an_ eight-point, the first two deer she has bagged in some nine or ten years of hunting. “It certainly was a lucky trip for me, a thrill of a life time,” she said. Six local couples were a mong the party on the hunt. They were Mr. and Mrs. Joe Neisler, Sr., Mr. and Mrs. Joe Neisler, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Char les Neisler, Mr. and Mrs. Hen ry Neisler, Mr. and Mrs. John <5. Plonk, Jr., and Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Grimes. BY NEALE PATRICK Ken Baity and Punch Parker now add additional evidence to the well-founded beliefs that they are two of the finest run ning backs in history of Moun taineer football. They rank one-two in the car eer scoring totals for Kings Mountain High School backs in i recent years . . . the most sue-! cessful seasons, in fact, in the annals of the sport here. ! A thorough search of past scoring totals by seasons, as re corded in copies of The Kings; Mountain Herald, disclose that I Baity, a rising senior at the University of South Carolina, is the all-time scoring king for the Mountaineers, with a three-year j total of 144 points. Parker’s, whose 122 markers; this year is believed to be the all j time high point mark for a sin-1 gle season, valuted into second! place among the careeer scorers, with a high school total of 134 points. Punch added his 122 this year to 12 points scored two au tumns ago as a sophomore. He failed to score as a junior, miss-! ing most of the 1959 season with a broken collar bone, suffered: in summer baseball. His absence from offensive ac tion as a junior, probably cost him the career scoring lead for the Mountaineers. Baity spread his scoring out j over three years. Like Parker, Ken also tallied two touchdowns j and 12 points as a sophomore (1955), then he had his biggest point year as a junior, with 78. He added 54 more points as a senior (1957) for his 144 total. Parker and Baity both won a rea scoring title trophies, given by the Gastonia Gazette, for their biggest point seasons — Parker this season and Baity in ■56. Johnny McGinnis, another fine running halfback here, whose career overlapped that of Baity’s is the third ranking career point maker for the Mountaineers. He posted a three-year total of 122 points, starting with six points as a sophomore in 1954, then adding 84 points as a junior and 32 points in his senior season ol *56. McGinnis’ 84 points in ‘55 is believed to be the single sea son high mark before Parker swept past it with his 122 total this campaign. Two other fleet halfbacks in the decade of the fifties also scored more than 100 points in their football careers. Don Gladden racked-up 108 points in two seasons of point making. After failing to score as a sophomore, in 1956, Don gal loped to 42 points in 1957 and added 66 as a senior in ‘58. Jimmy Kimmell also topped the century mark with a 105 point total for his three seasons of balanced scoring when he im proved his tally-making by 11 pbints ea,ch year. He scored 24 as a soph in 1950, boosted that to 35 as a junior, and then to 46 as a senior in 1952. Kimmell was credited, follow ing his senior year, with holding thes ehool scoring record. Charlie Carpenter, Jr., then sports editor of The Herald and a long-time follower of Moun taineer football, wrote following the ’52 campaign that Kimmell’s 46 points that year and 105 mar kers for his career “probably are school records.” Don Fisher rounds out the top half-dozen recorded scoring lead ers for the Mountaineers, with a career total of 90 points . . . com piled by the balanced and un usual distinction of scoring 30 points in each of his three prep seasons. Pilling Heating Team Cops Crown In first-Half of Men's Bowling The Dilling Heating Co. team copped the first-half title in the men’s duckpin bowling league, winning four straight games on the final night’s action of the first half on Monday. ’The champs defeated Cunning ham TV four straight games on Monday night to edge their lea-i gue-lead in the final standings to three full games edge over Pa- j ge’s Mens. Store which divided its final night games with In-j dependents and over Lemaster Supply which moved up with four wins on the final night. Tom Gamble of Independents bowled the high line of the week, a 132, and he was one of three bowlers sharing the top set score, with 345. John Dilling of the Dilling team and Clarense Plonk of Page’s also rolled 345’s. Dilling’s 'big set and Robert Gantt’s 125 line paced the Dill ing team to its four straight wins and the league first-half crown. All three of Dilling’s lines were, over a hundred. Richard Bridges1 led the Cunningham TV team! with a 107 game and 286 series. Paul Ware also had three hun dred-plus games for Dilling’s team. Plonk’s 126 line and his league high matching 345 series led Pa ge’s team in the split with Inde pendents. In addition to his loop-; leading 132 line, Tommy Gamble ] of Independents had two other | games over a hundred and thej 345 set which matched the top j mark in the league for the night Lemaster Auto and Home Sup- j ply won four straight games! from NehL to move into the sec- j ond place tie, with Grady Brac-j kett rolling high line (121) and Albert Braaekett the top set! (315) with all three games ov er the century. Rolling for indivi dual averages, Jim Cordell pac ed Nehi with a 107 line and 298 series. THE STANDINGS Team Dilling Heating Page’s Mens Store Lemaster Supply Cunningham TV Independents Nehi Bottling w L Pet 40 20 .667 37 23 .617 37 23 .617 27 33 .450 23 37 .383 16 ,44 .267 KEN BAITY . . . 144 points PUNCH PARKER . . . 134 points johnny McGinnis . . . 122 points DON GLADDEN . . » 108 points JNMMY KIMMELL . . . 105 points Bethware Divides Pair With Cherries Bethware stepped out, into Southwest Conference basketball action Friday night, dividing a twin-bill with Cherryville. Pat Bolin tossed in 21 points and Jeanette Hamrick, moved from guard to forward,, scored 20 to pace the Lady Buccaneers to a 55-36 victory in the girls game. Jeanette, an all-conference guard last year, was playing her first game at forward. • The Iron men squared the set with a 68-45 win, Robert Jenkins hitting 24 and Lester Jenkins 14 to pace Cherryville. Jerry Morris with 15 and Johnny Cash ion with ten paced the Bucs..
The Kings Mountain Herald (Kings Mountain, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 21, 1960, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75