CHAPTER 1
The Early Years ofDeveloping aFitness Pattern
The Emerging Athlete
In the world of fitness, athletics, and distance running, manypeople seriously believe that there is a certain age span that favorsfitness and competitive athletics. Once the end of that age spanis reached, they believe it is time to retire physically and continuewith career goals and objectives related to their occupations.Always a contrarian, I was told on several occasions that I wastoo young to participate in certain physical activities, and decadeslater I was told many times that I was too old to participate incertain physical activities. In most instances, my stubborn, goal-drivenway of life has proved them wrong. My family was verysports-oriented. My father, Ralph Sinclair, and my mother, EstherSinclair, were very active in community affairs. My sister, Jean,and brother, Roy, were also involved in sports at an early age.
In my early years, I was fortunate to grow up with a father whowas my school principal and also a sports fan. He had a specialinterest in golf, baseball, basketball, and football. After I reachedthe age of three, he took me with him to basketball and baseballgames, although I remember very little about the games we saw.When I was old enough to hold a bat or a basketball in my hands,I began playing with my neighborhood friends. My mother wasalso very supportive and encouraged me to be active and makefriends.
In the mid-1950s, I played Little League in Statesville, NorthCarolina. Since I was the youngest on the team at that time,my playing time was very limited. Several of my older friendscautioned me that I was too young to play a sport like baseball.
In 1957, at age ten, I decided to try playing in the adult softballleague for my church, New Perth Associate Reformed Presbyterian.I actually made the team and played in several games, usually inlate innings after the outcome of the game had been decided.Once again, my friends told me I was totally out of my mind tobe playing at my young age against men in their twenties andthirties.
A memorable event with a lasting impact happened when I was inthe fifth grade. My father unexpectedly came to my classroom andtook me with him to Charlotte to see my first major-league baseballgame. The Washington Senators were playing the CincinnatiReds in an exhibition game. The excitement and thrill of thatbaseball game made a huge impact on me, and my sports life waschanged forever. From that time forward, my goal was to becomea professional baseball player. I looked for opportunities to playbaseball and softball anytime a game was being held nearby.
By the time I was in the seventh grade, I had expanded my athleticinterests to include basketball and football. During that year, Itried out for and made the junior-high basketball and footballteams. My baseball activities included playing Babe Ruth Leaguebaseball in Statesville and making the Statesville Babe Ruth All-Starteam as a pitcher. Reaching that goal took much sacrifice anddetermination, because I was not old enough to have a driver'slicense. There were many days when I hitched rides with strangersback and forth from Troutman to Statesville, a distance of sixmiles. On days when car rides weren't available, I walked severalmiles to practice or to play in the games.
By the time I entered the ninth grade at Troutman High School,I was becoming a real sports fanatic. My father gave me the keyto the school gymnasium, and I made good use of that facility. Itseemed that every minute I wasn't at work I was playing basketballin the gym or playing baseball at the school athletic field. I madethe varsity baseball team and the junior varsity basketball andfootball teams. While I wasn't playing or working, I was busyhelping to organize youth baseball and football programs for thecommunity. Coach Bob Pharr was my baseball and basketballcoach. Having recently graduated from college, his youth andenthusiasm helped to motivate those of us who were trying tobecome established high-school athletes.
As a freshman, I had older athletic heroes that I followed closely.Locally, Danny Loftin and Jim McAbee were four years olderthan me and were exceptional athletes. When I attended athleticevents, I closely observed their movements and tried to learn newathletic skills from them.
My tenth grade in school was all about the sports world. Isuccessfully made the varsity basketball and football teams andplayed in many varsity baseball games. During the warm springafternoons, I sometimes participated with the distance runnerson the newly formed track team. I developed a secret desire torun distances at that time but had to choose between baseballor track as my varsity sport of choice. I really enjoyed runningseveral miles with the track members and then returning tobaseball practice. I began to feel that the reward for attendingclasses each day was to participate later in the day in variousvarsity athletic activities.
My junior year was a time of transition. I had to mix my threes-portathletic world with a few studies and sometimes a girlfriend.When I received my driver's license, I occasionally took my dateto a ballgame. The really big social event was having her watchme play in a varsity contest. I didn't have much time for thesocial world, because I had my sights set on college baseball andhopefully a professional baseball tryout. Our high school wasin the 3-A North Piedmont Conference. Unfortunately for us,almost every other school was much larger and had more studentsand better financial support. We always played bigger teams andlost more games than we won. Nevertheless, we always battledto the end. On the varsity football team, I was a regular starter atright guard. In basketball, I played the guard position. In baseball,I regularly played the outfield when I was not pitching.
At the end of my junior year, I made the Kannapolis AmericanLegion baseball team and was a regular starting pitcher.Practically every day in the summer of 1963 I drove my old 1954Ford almost sixty miles to play my favorite sport. Coach BillFord made a great impression on me as my baseball coach. Hispatience, positive attitude, and determination were qualities thatinfluenced me.
My senior year at Troutman seemed like a whirlwind of activity.Varsity football, varsity basketball, and varsity baseball wereoverlapping and nonstop. I was named captain of the baseballteam and had high hopes of going to Appalachian State TeachersCollege and playing varsity baseball. I actually did a minimalamount of studying—just enough to get accepted at Appalachianand eventually get my chance to play at that school. Beforegraduating from Troutman High School in 1964, I received theMost Athletic award, the Most School Spirit award, and theOutstanding Citizen award. Noticeably absent was any awardconnected in any way with positive academic performance.Attempting to keep myself physically fit, I played industrialleague basketball in Statesville that winter. In the summer of1964, I played for the Rowan County American Legion baseballteam. When I finished high school, I felt like I was on top of theworld and ready to conquer anything and everything. I wantedto pursue a career in school leadership and management, butit became secondary to my interest in becoming a professionalbaseball player.
College and Semipro Sports
Graduating from high school as a three-sport athlete andappreciating the attention from many friends at that time, I hada false sense of academic and athletic security when I entered thecollege ranks. I thought that academic and athletic success wouldbe almost automatic and that I could continue living in my dreamworld.
My mind-set as I entered Appalachian State Teachers Collegewas that of an energetic, fun-loving freshman who would indeedhave plenty of fun, play plenty of sports, and do a little studyingif I wanted to remain eligible. The college was located in themountains of North Carolina.
After I arrived on campus, I played intramural football andbasketball. I tried almost every sport imaginable and startedtraining that winter for the varsity baseball team. I actually madethe varsity team and pitched in several games. We played in alltypes of weather—usually very cold and at times snowy. Ourbaseball team was not very good. We had a great time on roadtrips but couldn't do what we were supposed to do—win games.I compared our team to the television comedy show F Troop. Wewere sometimes very comical and at other times very exciting. Wehad a way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
After our college season was over, I returned home for thesummer. I finished my second year of play with the Rowan CountyAmerican Legion baseball team. During my sophomore year, Imaintained my same outlook toward college—plenty of sportsand fun mixed in with a small amount of studying. In addition toall the sports that I played my freshman year, I added tennis andgolf. I even started jumping rope for the benefit of neighborhoodkids. Sledding became a popular winter night activity. Once againI made the varsity baseball team, with the same mediocre win-lossrecord.
That summer, Ken Treadway, our team catcher, and I played forthe predominately black Morganton semiprofessional baseballteam as the only whites on the field. We had a great time playingwith our new African American friends and were greeted warmlyby their all-black fan base. It helped that Ken became one of theirtop hitters. I was also one of their better pitchers.
A memorable event occurred one night after we had won a game.It was during the mid-1960s, and there was racial unrest in thiscountry. Two older white men who had been sitting quietly in thegrandstands approached me and showed me their calling cards,which read, The United Klans of America. They told me they wererepresenting the Ku Klux Klan and that I really needed to thinkabout what I was doing. Then they left the field. Being young, naïve,contrary, and defiant, I thought about what they said for aboutthirty seconds and went right back to that field to play the nextweek. I never saw the men again but have often thought as I gotolder about the potential danger I could have been in that night.
During my junior year at what had become Appalachian StateUniversity, I decided to try to improve my study habits, but I stillhad the grand dream of becoming a professional baseball player.I received the opportunity to impress major-league scouts when Iwas offered a tryout in High Point with the Detroit Tigers minor-leagueclub. The afternoon arrived for my pitching evaluation.I was throwing batting practice to the professional hitters. Theharder I tried to overpower them, the harder they hit me. Theywere hitting my fastball more than four hundred feet consistently.Reality really set in when the coach came to the pitcher's moundand told me to bear down and throw my hard stuff. I told him,"Coach, I am throwing my hard stuff!"
I knew then that my dream of playing professional baseball hadcome to a disappointing end. This actually proved to be a blessingin that it made me focus on academics, strive to earn a collegedegree, and eventually land a rewarding job in education.
In June 1968 I graduated with a degree in health and physicaleducation from Appalachian State University and married mycollege sweetheart, Claryce Higgins. We began our new lifetogether in Greensboro, North Carolina. She later became anelementary school teacher and also was very supportive of myathletic endeavors. We would later become proud parents ofStephen and Jennifer. They would eventually become high-schoolathletes in track and cross-country sports.
CHAPTER 2
Young Adulthood—Teaching, Coaching, andSchool Administration
The Guilford Years
The year was 1968, and I was hired to teach and coach three sportsat Northeast Guilford Junior High School near Greensboro,North Carolina. I was elated with my new teaching positionand coaching duties. When I wasn't working after school, I wasbusy playing softball and organizing a faculty basketball team.Our softball team eventually became known as the NortheastRaiders, and we enjoyed every minute of our playing time. Weentered a league in Greensboro and were very competitive—especiallythe group of coaches on our team. During basketballseason, we scheduled faculty games after the regular afternoonschool games and even in the evening hours at various schoolsites around the county.
Coaching football, basketball, and baseball was a dream for me.I also had the unique opportunity of coaching the girls' teamat our school for one game. The girls' coach couldn't make thegame, and I was quickly called upon to take over. I knew theplayers but didn't have a clue about their rules. In my coachingmanner, I begged them to play their best for me. At that time,their team had not won a game all year, but as luck would haveit, our girls' team somehow won the game against Stokesdaleeven with a clueless coach sitting on the bench.
Since most of the junior-high schools in Guilford County werenewly built, I had a chance to talk with other coaches and to forma countywide athletic program for all sports. Coaching basketball,football, and baseball left me very little time for other activities.By the time I locked up the school and took some of my athletesto their homes, it was after eight o'clock before I arrived home. Wealso had Saturday practices, which added to a long but rewardingwork week.
For some reason, however, I continued to find myself in potentiallydangerous social situations. The late 1960s were turbulent timesaround Greensboro. The May 1969 race riots were still fresh ineveryone's mind. Our coaching staff had formed a very good adultsoftball team and regularly played in the city league. One gamewas scheduled to be played at the Phillips Avenue field. At thattime, there had been unrest in that neighborhood, and we wereuneasy about going there to play at night. We played an all-blackteam and were actually winning the game when a fight broke outamong our players. Immediately the spectators became violent,and we found ourselves greatly outnumbered. Armed with softballbats, we cautiously made our way to our cars and were leavingthe neighborhood as the police arrived. We never again playedon that field.
In the early 1970s, our coaches found time to play golf on Saturdayafternoons and began organizing golf outings to Myrtle Beach,South Carolina. This allowed for some time away from our dailywork.
I continued my passion for baseball and played one year inthe Greensboro semipro league as a pitcher for the MadisonThrowing Company team. My public school coaching careerended in the spring of 1973, but I was fortunate to have somevery dedicated athletes during that time. During my last yearat Northeast Guilford Junior High School, I was promoted to aschool administrative assignment and began my career of morethan forty years in educational leadership positions.
Over a six-year span from 1968 to 1973, our basketball teams atNortheast Guilford had an overall winning record of 80 percent.I believed in a very strenuous training program in all sports. Wehad small but incredibly fit teams. We ran many miles each weekfor endurance and prided ourselves on applying tough defensivefull-court presses to wear the opposition down toward the end ofthe game. Our baseball teams had an overall winning percentageof 90 percent over five years and actually went undefeated one year.We had several athletes who went on to play college sports.
With my style of coaching, I was actively involved in fitnesstraining with my athletes. Over the years we had complete, well-disciplinedteams, and our athletes knew I would not ask themto perform any physical feats I didn't first attempt myself andapprove. Our work-hard, play-hard philosophy was the successfulformula for our teams.
In the summer of 1973, I was promoted to the position of assistantdirector of personnel for the Guilford County School system.My new administrative assignments at the Guilford CountySchools administrative offices began to limit my participationin physical fitness activities. Fortunately, three of my district-levelcoworkers were also golfers. Johnny Presson, Randy Friddle,Terry Crump, and I routinely planned for golf outings whenwe had some available time. Johnny and I sometimes combinedteacher recruiting trips with a game of golf near the college oruniversity we were visiting. Randy Friddle and I actually entereda couple of local tournaments, and I found out very quickly howbad I really was at the game.
