In an era when statisticians didn’t exist, and boys played sports purely for the love of the game, Zeb McDowell excelled at everything he attempted, until loss and destiny made him walk away.

It was in the days of segregation, when McDowell, 83, attended Reid High School in Belmont; and he laughs sometimes at the joy of it all, when he sees the memories on the pages of the 1952 yearbook.

“They didn’t keep records then like they keep them now, you know. They didn’t take a whole bunch of pictures, either,” he said. “I was looking, trying to find a group picture. You wouldn’t think about it, back then….keeping records, or anything like that.”

McDowell was born in 1932 and grew up in Mountain Island, out by the dam, in a home with three brothers and four sisters, on land that his family farmed and where sports became not so much something that required skill, but something that took up the time.

“Well, there wasn’t nothing much else to do but play sports and go to school. That was our relaxation, playing sports,” he said, then laughs. “Well, I enjoyed playing sports because always, most of the time, the girls would like you more. So I had quite a few girlfriends. But I was a nervous-type person, so I had to do something all the time. Just like I am now – I can’t sit around.”

In springtime during high school, McDowell played baseball, where he had a natural edge in being left-handed and, when he wasn’t covering centerfield, he got to pitch. “Matter of fact, I was the only left-hander on that team. That was to my advantage, because my left-handed curve ball was different than the rest of them,” he said. “My curve ball, and my under-handed pitch.”

Under-handed?

“Yes, ma’am, I’d sling it under-handed instead of coming over the top.”

He said his team finished second one year, in the state tournament.

Come fall, McDowell got to play left tackle and do what he enjoyed most. “My favorite sport was football, because I loved to hit somebody,” he said, laughing again. “We went from county to county, and we had to ride the bus. We played all the schools in Gaston County and Mecklenburg County.”

In winter, McDowell was the basketball team’s 6-foot center. And again, his being left-handed was the secret weapon. “My favorite memory was that I was the big boy in basketball, and I had a pretty good left hook. A lot of people would be on my right side, then they found out I was left-handed,” he said.

Throughout high school, McDowell played season after season, doing his best and devouring every moment, like a kid at a parking-lot carnival, before the big trucks pack it up and move it along. He did well enough that colleges found out about him, and North Carolina A&T offered a scholarship.

But that’s when destiny stepped in.

Sports had been his pastime, his joy, but it would not be the job that paid for McDowell’s college education. The athlete had to step back, and let the young man he’d become step forward.

“My father died. There were four kids still at home so I had to help Momma with four kids,” he said. “I knew I had a scholarship, but the most important thing was I told my father on his death bed I would take care of Momma and the family…. There was a blood clot… He said, ‘Take care of Maw for me,’ and that’s what I did.”

Wardell McDowell Sr. died at age 48.

Zeb McDowell found work with Duke Power and stayed with the company, he said, about 35 years, including a segment at the McGuire Nuclear Station. “Scary? Yes, ma’am, that sure was. You had to keep your eyes open the whole time,” he said. “But I worked my way through the whole system. Every Duke Power plant, I worked at it.”

His decision to follow his father’s wishes has guided his life in a positive way.

“Ever since then, I’ve been blessed. Really been blessed. I have my health and my life and my strength, and I’ve never really been sick,” he said. “I had a job, and I was able to take care of my momma and my brothers and sisters, so I know the Lord blessed me from there.”

His mother, Rosie, born in 1906, lived to be 101.

McDowell still lives in Mount Holly. His first wife died, and he married Stella about 18 years ago, he said, and she brought three more children to the family. He runs a concrete business with the boys because, like he said, he just can’t sit still. Makes him nervous.

“We pour concrete just about every day. Driveways, sidewalks, at buildings, we don’t back off anything,” he said.

He likes to follow the Carolina Panthers, used to watch the Washington Redskins, and keeps up with Michael Jordan and the Charlotte Hornets, but he gets fidgety if they aren’t winning. The Hall of Fame induction, he said, surprised him. “But quite naturally, I’m going to be happy,” he said. “My grandkids and my great-grandkids, they can see where I’ve come from.”