Harvey Daw's love affair with sports started as a youngster in his native Kinston with baseball.
With a recreation center gym next to his home, it wasn't long until he took up basketball in a big way and stayed with it through college.
After college, a move to Morganton, marriage and children, Harvey turned once again to baseball. With his son, Zach, a pitcher at Guilford College, it's pretty safe to say he'll stick to baseball a couple more years.
Harvey went to work with GMAC after college at Campbell University and his career in auto financing brought him to Morganton in 1983. It was his move to Burke County that brought his future wife into the picture. She was the former Nancy Franklin and her father, Earl, was an auto dealer in Valdese.
Harvey's dad and granddad were baseball players. His granddad, a fine college player, was drafted by the Cleveland Indians. Both helped steer him into the game and were his first teachers.
His 12-year-old Kinston Little Tar Heel League team went to the state tournament and he made the all-star team as a member of the 13-14 year olds in that league.
In Kinston, however, the game was basketball and basketball was Coach Paul Jones. As a young basketball coach myself in the 1950s, I remember seeing Paul every year at the coaches' clinic in Greensboro and watching some of this players when they made the East All-Star team.
With the help of the nearby gym, basketball took over as Harvey's game when he reached junior high. From the eighth to 10th grades, his junior high and junior varsity teams only lost two games.
He moved on to Jones' varsity team his last two years of high school, with the highlight being a conference tournament championship his senior year when he made two free throws in the final seconds.
Harvey played a year of prep school before attending college at Parrott Academy. There he averaged 20 points with a one-game high of 36 and another of 27.
Next was Campbell University where he made the team as a walk-on during the schools first year of NCAA Division I play. The highlight of his college basketball days was playing N.C. State University in a close game at Reynolds Coliseum in the late 1970s.
Baseball returned to Harvey's life when his son, Zach, made the game his preferred sport.
Being a member of the Foothills Phantoms was an important part of Zach's early baseball experience. The Phantom's traveling team was started by Mike Hasson and Mike Imboden and was later joined by Mark Attaway, Mike Daves and Harvey as their sons became a part of the team. This team was an early and important start to our local baseball resurgence, finishing as the silver medalist in the State Games as a 15 and under team.
Zach was a starting pitcher and first baseman at Freedom High in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades. He finished his career with 11 home runs, 70 RBI and and a .325 batting average. On his Senior Night, he hit a grandslam home run and was the winning pitcher against rival East Burke.
Zach is now 6 feet, 4 inches and at 230 pounds, is a pitcher at Guilford and he and his dad would love for him to have a career in the game when his college days are over.
Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-66, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.
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