Class of 2009
Coach Dick Thompson
The lasting influence of Richard Monroe (Dick) Thompson can be heard in the way he is still respectfully referred to as “Coach” by generations of athletes in Mount Holly and Stanley more than 25 years after his passion.
This consummate athlete’s success on the playing field was surpassed by his success as a coach and mentor to his players on and off the field.
Thompson was born on February 19, 1915, in Mount Holly. His parents were Julia Smith Thompson and Edward Eugene Thompson was the former Mount Holly Chief of Police as well as the proprietor of the Mount Holly Ice & Fuel Company.
Thompson grew up a part of the Mount Holly sports tradition, playing football and baseball in neighborhood backyards and lots of the mill town. His greatest influence as a youngster was his uncle, Earl Thompson, then the principal at Mount Holly High School, who became a father figure to the 13-year-old boy when his father Edward (E.E.) suddenly died. Earl had coached football before he became a principal.
Under the guidance of Coach Seaton Holt, Thompson played football for the Mount Holly Hawks as a guard and fullback and was also a member of the wrestling team. His high school coach, who helped to instill a lifelong love of sports in the young athlete, later became his brother-in-law when Seaton married Thompson’s oldest sister, Mildred.
Thompson graduated in 1934 and won a football scholarship to North Carolina State University, where he played right end and was coached by Herman Hickman and Doc Newton. One of his teammates was his younger brother James Browning (J.B.) Thompson. J.B. went on to play football on a professional level for the Charlotte Clippers. Thompson was also on the wrestling team at North Carolina State.
“He was going to go into forestry,” says Linda Thompson Sherrill, his oldest daughter. “ But he changed his mind and went into education. He simply, absolutely loved sports. And he had the patience to work with children...we always said he had the patience of Job.”
After graduating in 1938, Thompson married the love of his life, Louise Holland, a fellow Mount Holly School graduate. He also accepted his first coaching job at Charlotte Tech High School, where he spent four years and was obligated to put on a helmet, pads, and jersey during one game because his team was short a few players.
“Our lives revolved around sports,” says Linda. “Our Mama was a perfect coach’s wife. We did not eat until Daddy got home from practice. She took care of everything but the mowing, which we did after we got old enough. Thye had a great marriage, it lasted almost 50 years.”
Like many coaches of his generation, Thompson was a “coach for all seasons,” coaching football, basketball, and baseball. In 1942, he came home to Mount Holly to coach football and basketball at Mount Holly High School and taught civics, health, and physical education for six years.
In 1943, Thompson joined the United States Army and served for a little over a year. In 1948, he took a position as coach at Stanley High School, where he coached football, basketball, and baseball and track for 24 years. When the two schools merged in 1971, he joined Coach Delmer Wilkes and coached at East Gaston High until he retired in 1974. His lifetime record as a football coach was 186-148-23 or 357 games. As a basketball coach, his record was 367 wins, 198 losses, totaling 565 games.
“He was a tough coach but fair. He could give constructive criticism and then go straight to praise easily,” says Bobby John Rhyne, who was coached by Thompson at Mount Holly High School in football and baseball lin 1947 and 1948.
“He had a soft spot for the boys with a rough home life or no father,” says Linda. “He bought them shoes, paid them to babysit and gave them money for haircuts. And when he coached, he never acted up on the sidelines. One whistle and they would straighten right up. He always admired Bear Bryant and people compared him to Bryant.”
Thompson was named Man of the Year in Stanley in 1967 and named head coach of the Western All-Stars in the Annual East-West Football Game in 1973. That same year, he became a member of the Gaston County Sports Hall of Fame. But one of Coach Thompson’s greatest honors came at the last game of his career at Stanley, where he was joined by former players from Charlotte Tech, Mount Holly High School, and Stanley High School. The men, whose characters had been shaped by the firm and compassionate coach, came to honor him and his career and to present him with a new, blue and white Chevrolet.
Also, during his coaching career, two of his players played at the Shrine Bowl.
“His desire was to see all of the boys excel in life...he was more concerned with that than winning the game,” says Rhyne.
Richard Monroe (Dick) Thompson died in 1983 and is missed by his loving family.
Vivian Laye Broome
Vivian Laye Broome began playing baseball against the boys in her neighborhood in Belmont at 11 years old, winning more often than not. She played softball in high school, where she was given the nickname “Skeeter” because of her speed and slight size. A base runner, Skeeter was known for her flitting about like a mosquito and stealing bases before anyone knew what had happened. She also was a standout basketball player at Belmont High School, which was impressive considering the fact that she was 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed about 90 pounds.
Throughout her softball career, she played shortstop, second base and catcher in the Belmont Women’s League then began her legendary run with the A.Y. p. (American Yarn and Processing) Durenense Women’s Softball Team in 1939.
Skeeter played on that team with the legendary Dot Satterfield, Bertha Johnson Dunn, and Ruby Heaftner among others.
“She was my wonderful little catcher,” says Dunn. Dunn pitched to Laye Broome for a year with the A.Y.P. team when the original catcher for the team hurt her hand catching Bertha’s fastballs wearing a glove without padding.
Vivian, at one time considered the fastest base runner in women’s softball, was always the premier player on any softball team she played for. Vivian led her teams to four consecutive state and regional titles and berths in the Women’s ASA World Series. She was All-State and All-South five straight years as a shortstop, second baseman and catcher. She made the All-state team three times and participated in the nationals twice.
In 1943 she was voted “most outstanding players in all Tar Heelia.” In 1941, playing for the state championship with AYP, Laye Brooke had four hits - a spectacular homer and three singles. She scored five runs, batted in four runs and stole five bases. She declined an invitation to play for the All-American Women's Professional baseball League. Laye Broome was inducted into the Belmont Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.
Dunn remembers, “She was a good ballplayer, she was as fast as everyone says she was...and she was strong. Behind the plate, she was so tiny, but she could throw that ball to the first or second plate without even getting up. And Vivian was a very good hitter...she could knock that ball. On top of all of that, she was just a pleasant and lovely person.’
When asked if there is anything she remembers about Laye Broome’s playing, Dunn laughs. “Well, we beat everybody!”
In 1944, Vivian Laye married Carl Broome. The couple settled in Mount Holly where Vivian worked for the American & Efird Mills and Southern Dyestuff Company. She has a son, Carlton, who fondly remembers working as a batboy for her AYP Durene team and getting pointers from his mother when he played little league.
“Mom was always into sports, even in her later years,” says Broome. “She loved college basketball, especially NC State, which is where I went to school.”
He said his mother was always proud of the things she did on the ballfield and that pride carries on in her family.
“It makes me very proud to look at the things she did,” Broome says. “Mom and all of these women she played with were real trailblazers.”
Vivian passed on January 24, 2003, two years after Carl’s death, leaving her son, Carlton and daughter-in-law Cecelia, three grandchildren, Brian, Amanda and Joseph, and five great-grandchildren, Sophie, Joey, Jack Henry, Madeline, and Anna Claire.
This superb athlete also left an enduring legacy of excellence in a sport that too often overlooks the contributions of the athletes who pioneered athletics for women in the pre-Title Nine era.
Tommy Wilson
A renaissance athlete, Tom Wilson got involved in sports as an 11-year old in Mount Holly in 1950.
Born in 1939 the Mount Holly native was an active participant in the sport that dominated playtime in the mill villages of the era. Tom’s father, Vance Zeb Wilson, passed away when Tom was 13. His mother, Sally Wilson, managed things and encouraged her son with the help and support of their neighbors, says Tom.
“The community in Mount Holly was great and encouraged you to participate, “ says Tom. “I was fortunate to be associated with so many good people.”
Tom played a variety of positions on the baseball field: pitcher, first, third. But the sport that truly held his heart did not become a part of his life until his sophomore here at Mount Holly High School---football.
“The kids I associated with seemed to drift to it and that was the direction I went too.”
During his high school athletic career, Tom played football (quarterback and defensive safety) and basketball for the Mount Holly Hawks, and pitched for the Hawks baseball team. His sophomore year, he received the most improved player award for football and during his senior year was the quarterback and co-captain for the legendary 1957 Mount Holly Hawks football team. He also managed to squeeze in three summers worth of baseball in the Paw Cree,/Mount Holly American Legion League.
Tommy’s memories of his time in Mount Holly High School are some of the best ones, he says. “Being with Perry (Toomey) and Don Killian---made my success a little easier---the quality of people from 1953-1957---I graduated in 1957...during our regular season we were undefeated, we went eight straight games without giving up a score.”
Wilson lettered in all three sports and graduated with honors from Mount Holly High School.
Perry and Tommy went on to college together, hitchhiking to Appalachian State University in Boone together to try out for the football team. Tommy received a football scholarship to ASU where he again distinguished himself as an athlete and a student.
“I received a football scholarship and an academic scholarship---a full ride---it paid my way, “ says Tommy. “Had I not been involved in sports, I would not have gone to college. And I have enjoyed athletics all my life---I still do---they were the center of things I did.”
A quarterback and defensive safety for the ASU team as a sophomore, he received the only award given at that time, the “Most Improved Player Award,” and was the first quarterback to receive the award in its 12 hear history at the time. As a senior, he was the team’s co-captain and received the “Bob Broome Memorial Award” and was named to the 1960 All-North State Conference Football team. Tommy also played baseball for ASU during his senior year; again taking the lead as the team’s pitcher for the only spring he did not have spring football practice. He graduated with honors from ASU in 1961.
One of Tommy’s most reflective moments came during his college years, when he got invited to the Green Bay Packer’s tryout camp.
“I knew my limitations---I was never bug as NFL players---I thought about that and knew my limitations and decided to go out and get to work.”
Tommy went on to obtain an MA from Western Carolina University and completed the PEP (Principals’ Executive Program) at UNC Chapel Hill.
His first job out of school as a coach and a teacher brought his full circle.
“A friend of mine and I played football with at Appalachian for four years (Jim Daye) started a football program at a high school here at West Hendersonville High School, “ he says. “I was hired to start the program and I stayed eight yers. We Stabilized each other and had some successes---due to Jim Dayes organizational skills and my assistance.
From 1961-1969 Tommy coached, taught (social studies) and was assistant principal at West Hendersonville High School. Football was his primary passion as a coach. Tommy also coached baseball, basketball, and girl’s basketball, and started wrestling and track and field programs. He moved to Asheville High School in 1969 to coach football and track and to teach social studies. In 1970 he moved to Hendersonville High School where he coached football and wrestling, taught social studies and was assistant principal and them principal (1973-1991). He gare up coaching when he became principal.
“”It was a big decision to give up coaching, there were a lot of good moments,” says Tommy.
Tommy is now retired and remains in Hendersonville with his wife, Phyllis. The couple has two sons, Michael Deal Wilson who lives in Atlanta, GA with his wife Tillitha, and Jonathan Wade Wilson, who lives in Denver with his wife Lisa, and Tommy’s granddaughters, Dayley and Sydney. Tommy now spends time golfing (his handicap runs about 7) attending Hendersonville High School football games.
Don Killian
A standout in a generation marked by the spirit of competition and athletic excellence, Mount Holly native Don Killian grew up watching his father Fred Killian play second base in the Gaston County textile leagues. Fred Killian worked for Duke Power, and the Kilian family lived in Riverbend Village, where baseball teams were one of the main forms of entertainment in the neighborhood. Don began his athletic career as a batboy and score-keeper.
After a few years of this, his father taught him to play shortstop.
“It was the glamour position,” says Don. “Dad thought I would be good at it.”
Then Don began to expand his horizons, playing basketball at Lucia Elementary School although there was no official league at that time. Upon entering the hallowed halls of Mount Holly High School, like many athletic teens of his era, he discovered a love of football and basketball in addition to his baseball aspirations.
He spent four years as the Hawks shortstop, traveling with the team to the state playoffs his sophomore and junior years, with the team finishing as the runners-up his sophomore year. Don also was a three-year starter at halfback for the Hawks football team, and during his senior year, the team was second in the conference in touchdowns scored.
Finally, Don also played basketball for the high school and was a three-year starter at guard for the Hawks, leading the team in scoring each year. He scored more than 17 points per game his sophomore year, more than 19 points a game his junior year, and more than 21 points a game his senior year. Don was selected all-conference his senior year and racked up single-game highs of 4 points against Bessemer City High and 43 against Tryon High.
“What can I say - I liked to play sports - I was a jock. Whatever was in season is what we played,” says Don.
But the true zenith of his time as an athlete for Don was his time with the area’s American Legion Baseball leagues during his summer breaks from school.
“Playing American Legion Baseball was the highlight of everything I did as an athlete, says Don, who started as the shortstop for the Gastonia Post 23 Legion team that finished second in the nation behind San Diego, California in the 1954 Little League World Series in Yakima, Washington. Don is best known for “The Catch” against Salisbury, North Carolina that won them the Western North Carolina Championship.
He laughs, “I still don’t know how I made that catch. We had a great team - all of us played pro-ball on some level.”
Then after winning the local regionals, which were played in Gastonia, they moved on to the state regionals in New Orleans, Louisiana and those vying for the national title went on to Yakima. Most o fDon’s team, he recalls, had hardly been out of Gaston County in their young lives. The original team is still close today, according to Don, who went on to play the next year on the Paw Creek Legion Team.
After he graduated from Mount Holly High School in 1957, Don attended Davidson College - his mother wanted him to become a minister - where he developed his love of sociology and teaching. He spent four years as the starting shortstop for Davidson and was voted MVP his sophomore, junior, and senior years.
Don is matter of fact about the two years he spent after graduating from college as a shortstop for he New York Mets minor league team, the Shelby Colonels. “I had no illusions about playing the Majors - I looked at is as a summer job.”
Don, who married his high school sweetheart, Helen Jones, a former star player on Mount Holly High’s Girl’s Basketball team in 1959, gave us baseball when his son, Don Jr., was born. “It was not a difficult choice, I was very fired up about teaching by that time.”
While teaching and raising two children with his wife, Don still found time to be near the sports he loved as a youth, as a coach. He coached for the Mount Holly Optimist’s Club’s baseball, basketball, and football teams during the early 1970s and was an assistant football coach under Coach Delmer Wiles at Mount Holly High in 1963m 1964, and 1965 and was the high school’s head basketball coach during the same period.
When not playing ball or coaching, Don is a dedicated teacher, who began his career at Ranlo Elementary School in 1960, then Mount Holly High School. In 1965 Gaston College opened up and he has been there ever since (at time of publication) as a professor of sociology, a field of study that he finds fascinating.
Both of Don’s children followed in their father’s shoes: Don Jr. played basketball and was a formidable baseball player who competed at his father’s old position, shortstop. He played for Ole Miss for two years during college. Don’s daughter Cindy was a dancer and cheerleader and danced for UGA and cheered for the Atlanta Falcons.
He has three grandchildren: Jenna, Kayla, and Sara Jane
Ray Campbell
When he was 16 years old, Mount Holly Golden Gloves legend Ray Campbell saw his first cousin, Red Overcash, win a boxing trophy in Cramerton.
“I said to myself ‘you have got to win one of those,’” says Ray with a chuckle. “I did later and my Uncle Frank (Helderman was at most of my matches. I wanted to do good for him for I knew he was very proud of me and the way I was doing in the ring.”
Ray Campbell got him “one of those” trophies...actually Ray got several shelves worth of those trophies over the years. In Hickory, North Carolina in 1952, Ray was a runner-up in the novice heavyweight division. In 1953 he won the novice heavyweight division in Hickory, The Carolinas Golden Gloves tournament in Greenville SC. That same year he was also runner-up in the Tri-State Tournament in High Point.
Ray went into the Army in 1953, where he racked up a record of 50 wins and one loss.
“It is great what being in shape will do for you,” says Ray.
After his tour of duty ended in 1956, Ray came home not intending to box again - until he broke down and went to McManus to ask if he could use a heavyweight. The coach said that he could and two weeks later Ray was in the tournament in Charlotte - which he won - and then he traveled to New York to represent the Carolinas in the Eastern AAU Golden Gloves Tournament.
Ray’s amateur career record consists of 70 wins and nine losses. He won the Carolinas AAU Tournament in Greenville, South Carolina, and the Tri-State Tournament in High Point. After Ray returned from his military service, he won two amateur titles in Charlotte, one in Lenoir, two titles in Hamlet, two in Mount Holly, two in Newton, and one in both High Point and Gastonia. The champion of more than a dozen amateur titles throughout the Carolinas, Ray was a two-time Carolinas Golden Heavyweight Champion in 1958 and 1959.
“My biggest disappointment was the fact that I didn’t get the chance to get in shape like I did while in the Army to let the local people see me at my best,” says Ray.
During his hitch in the Army, Ray remembers once incident fondly. Right after he arrived overseas, those in authority began to have smokers, boxing matches in which raw recruits were offered a chance to see if they wanted to try out the sport, and a regimental team was chosen.
“I had not seen a pair of gloves in the last year and had done no training,” Ray reminisces. “I drew a big ole Hawaiaan boy and did very little work the first round saving my energy. At the end of the round, I go to my corner and they sit the stool up and I take my foot and push it back and the same at the end of round two and I knocked him out in the third round. Later in the gym taking a shower, he comes over to me and asks how long I had been training and I told him I hadn’t done any working in over a year. He said some words I won’t repeat and then he tells me he saw that I stood at the end of the first and second rounds and he knew I was in good shape to do this and at this point I had to laugh as I told him had I sat down between rounds I would not have been able to get back to my feet for my legs were gone. He never did believe me. At this time I weighed around 235 pounds but it wasn’t long till I had trained down to 198 pounds.”
A man who has always been surrounded by friends and family, Ray’s main motivation for competing was to meet people and to grow beyond the borders of his hometown. Born in 1933 in Belmont, Ray’s family moved to Mount Holly when he was three years old. Almost a lifelong resident of the town, he is still close friends with Bearl Davis, one of the boxing Davis clan and Peery Toomey, another renowned Mount Holly athlete.
“I was very happy that I got to know others and to learn some of their backgrounds and just be able to be a friend out of the ring and be against them in the ring,” says Ray.
Ray has three daughters, Debra Ann Black, Alesia Austin, and Belinda Rae Gantt and five grandchildren. An automobile mechanic by trade, Ray retired from Kysor Carolina Metal Products in 1995 and has since spent his time traveling and working on projects close to his heart, such as the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame.
1963 Mount Holly High School Football Team
All southern towns have their great sport’s “moments”. That second in which a team of young hometown heroes, carrying the hopes and dreams of the entire community, bursts through the stratosphere and then becomes of one brief moment, gloriously immortal. Mor Mount Holly, that moment is frozen in time, on a cold, clear November night in 1963 at Costner Field. The night the 1963 Mount Holly Hawks football team won the Piedmont District Crown, the equivalent today of the state championship.
Coach Delmer Wiles had commented to the press before the season began that he hoped to better the 1962 record of 6-2-1. He also sent a card to each of his players before the beginning of the 1963 squad, meaning that the coach expected to better the record and hope had nothing to do with it. And he got exactly what he wanted, Mount Holly High School’s first undefeated football season in 27 years.
“The thing about the team---a lot of us were the first freshmen in (Delmer Wiles) Phys. Ed. class---it was like a mini marine boot camp, “ says MVP Bruce Bolick, the team’s standout tailback, playing in a single wing formation---there was no traditional quarterback. “But it was part of laying the foundation, the mental toughness needed to win. We were four-year veterans.”
“There were no egos on the team---it was just a bunch of good guys, “ says Gene Thompson, nephew of Coach Dick Tompson, who played wing-back on offense and half-back on defense. “What I had mostly was speed---I was the fastest one of the teams. Bruce was good at making the cuts---had it not been for the blocking, the line he gave me I would never have run so well.”
“Winning --- it was simply what coach expected of us, “ says Jim Guin, who played on both offense and defense. “He was a person to admire and respect and he had a way of getting the best out of you---he was a quiet giant. And it was the physical conditioning of the team that gave us an edge---Coach was a former Marine and he worked us hard---the toughest was the wind sprints. But come Friday night it was a relief because we had all this energy we could release in the game---the game was fun, the practice was a work.”
The boys who made up the 63 team and all grew up together was a part of the Mount Holly sporting tradition, playing baseball and football in the mill villages and neighborhoods as a kid and watching older brothers play football for the Mount Holly Hawks.
“Mount Holly was a huge football town---it was the tames and the band---Robert Black and the atmosphere he created, “ Says Bolick.
Buin adds, “Football gave the town something to rally around on a Friday night. It felt like you saw the whole town at the games.”
Guided by their indomitable leader, the squad of 17 seniors, 15 juniors and a lone freshman rolled over teams in Rockingham, Lowell, Bessemer City, Cramerton, and Dallas. During their regular season, the offense, piloted by Thompson and Bolick, accumulated 268 points and the Hawk’s Defense, let by Johnny Carpenter, Tommy McCollell and Terry Waldroop, gave up three touchdowns all season, allowing the opposing teams to score all of 19 points in nine games. The first five games of the season were shut-outs and the defense had six shut-outs for the season.
Their journey culminated in the Little Six Conference title fight against Stanley.
The games at the end of the regular season were rough, but got the team ready for the play-offs, recalls Bolick.
“We had a week to the first playoff game so we scouted our opponent---South Stanly,” says Bolick. “They had this running back, Jimmy “Bubb” Lisk---he was awesome, a man among kids. It was pretty scary going up against him---we had never seen a player like that before---but sometimes you play better when you are scared---we came from behind and won. It was the defense that made the difference---they deserve all the credit---I don’t think they got the credit they deserved.”
Thompson says, “Jonny Carpenter was the heard of the defense---he was 150 pounds and played center---tough, but the nicest guy you could meet.”
Guin adds that Thomson might have had something to do with it as well. “I only saw one team ever catch him---he was so fast, he could cut that corner and he was gone.”
After the victory against South Stanly, the team was set to play North Davidson for the title---on what turned out to be the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Sporting events, professional and amateur alike, were cancelled across the country. While the discussion on whether to postpone the game or not was going on in Mount Holly, it was discovered that the North Davidson team was en route, so the decision was made to play.
The Hawks took the field and won the championship 14-7, the 14 points all scored by Bolic, with 163 yards rushing, 130 of those yards belonging to Bolick. The fact that neither team scored until the second half, with Bolkick achieving both of his runs before the North Davidson Black Knights’ 66 year drive, made for an exciting and distracting game.
The national tragedy did stay with the team, says Bolick. “It tempered our victory.
All three former players agree that the lessons they learned from playing for Coach Wiles and the brotherhood build during that wonderful season in 1963 have served them and their fellow teammates, who all still stay in touch, very well indeed.
“We learned discipline, the ability to take life’s ups and downs, and the mental toughness to get through the tough times, “ says Bolick.
“Looking back you realize we were pretty good, “ says Jim Guin. “We were a true team.”
