We lost one of our biggest basketball fans from my coaching days at Salem last week when Clarence Clark passed away. Clarence took a special liking to our 1964 team as did many others, and for good reason.
That season we won 18 games and lost five. In every one of our losses we either had the lead or were only a point behind in the last minute of each game.
It made for a very exciting season as we won the Burke County conference and tournament championships, then took the district tournament at Gardner-Webb University which landed us a spot in the state tournament in Durham.
Clarence followed us to almost every game, and along with his brothers Buren and Palmer, made the trip to Durham.
In that game we played Bethel High of Pitt County and thought we had it won when their great player, Tex Everett, missed a long jump shot in the last 30 seconds and we had a one-point lead. However, the big 6 foot, 5 inch all-state player crashed the boards and with the aid of a long rebound put in the game-winning shot from just inside the foul line.
It was like so many of our games that season. We lost two times to Valdese, a 3A school in the last minute and also lost to 2A Chase High the same way.
Clarence loved all sports but he probably liked the Boston Red Sox best of all. He lived a short time in that part of the country and saw them play a number of times. He also made several trips back to see them play after moving home to Morganton.
We had several community baseball teams around 1950 and Clarence fielded one of them from the Jenkins Road area. Bud Duckworth had a team at Salem as did Wilson Chapman in the Enola area. Johnny Poteat and Wimpy Carswell led a team from Glen Alpine and Milas Franklin managed one at Antioch.
We played games on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and some of the fields had unusual features, the most unusual being at Enola where you couldn't see the leftfielder.
Clarence knew about left fields with strange features, being a Red Sox fan. Boston's Fenway Park has the most unusual feature of any Major League team with its short, high wall on the left side of the outfield.
Clarence and I were cousins as his grandmother was my mother's half-sister. His big family will miss him.
Trophy case
Last week I told you about the new trophy case we are installing at the Salem gym. If you want to contribute, send your check made out to the Trophy Case Fund to:
Salem Elementary School, 1329 Salem Road, Morganton, NC 28655.
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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