As I sat down to write this column, two of our better athletes, who are no longer with us, came to mind, Max Whisnant and Beth Choate.
In his day, Max was the very best softball pitcher in Burke County and performed on many championship teams. I was saddened to learn a couple of weeks ago that he had passed away.
When I started playing fast-pitch softball in 1954, Max was the only local pitcher using the windmill style delivery. To someone who had never seen it before, it was awesome as the pitching slab was less than 50 feet from home plate and the ball came at you faster than most baseball pitchers could throw it.
In '54, we Baptists in the Catawba River Association formed a softball league and it became extremely popular. There was no baseball being played locally as our minor league team had ceased operations two years earlier. Television was still very new and well over half of the homes didn't have one, and even if they did, baseball was rarely on.
With so many players involved in the Baptist league, our local recreation league took a backseat to the new league. I've told quite a bit over the past four years about this league but some of it requires repeating to tell the Max Whisnant story.
Max was the pitcher for Zion Church in his native Oak Hill community. With his great pitching, they won the championship the first four years we played.
The 1856 season stands out to me as our team at Pleasant Ridge made it to the playoff finals against Max and his Zion team. The games were played at the old Broughton Hospital field. There was a bank around home plate that extended out well past first base and for the finals it was filled with several hundred fans.
Max had lost very few games in the three seasons up to this time and had some fine softball players on his team that included Dick Rhyne, Ben Mull and Danny Puckett.
I was only an average player but my most memorable softball moment came in the fifth game. We were tied at two games each which meant we had already won two more than expected. The game moved to the fifth inning with Max pitching a no-hitter and ahead 1-0. When I came to bat in the fifth, I hit the longest ball I had ever hit in softball down the left field line. I just knew it was foul but when I heard home plate umpire Jack Biggerstaff holler "fair ball," it was a great thrill.
We lost the series 4-3 but at that time it was an accomplishment to beat Max three times in two weeks. He played hard and fair and never questioned an umpire's call.
He won many more championships before calling it quits as our best softball pitcher for more than a decade. I don't remember a single player who didn't respect him highly.
Beth Choate
Beth was by far the best girl tennis player ever turned out in our area and it was special to see that her alma mater, The University of Arizona, was honoring her with a new walkway and gardens next to their tennis complex.
After college she became a teaching professional and was on her way to a tournament when she was killed in an auto accident in Georgia in 2006.
Beth was ranked as the No. 1 tennis player in her age group in North Carolina and was nationally ranked from age 12 to 18. She earned a scholarship to Arizona and was the tennis captain her junior and senior seasons.
Her early tennis was played on the courts at the Collett Street Recreation Center.
Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-1966, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.
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