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Frank Giardina: Recalling some football names from days gone by

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By By Frank Giardina For the Gazette-Mail

It's the end of October and a time to remember some past names of state and Kanawha Valley football players and coaches.

n Tom Bossie Jr. - When Charleston Catholic had a football team, the Fighting Irish had many outstanding players. Bossie graduated from CCHS in 1971 and went on to play for the Young Thundering Herd at Marshall. In high school, he had the unusual opportunity to play against his dad, who was the head coach at DuPont.

n The Bowden family - Speaking of playing against your father, the Bowdens had to do that on the national stage and on national TV when son, Tommy, coached at Clemson against his dad, Bobby, at Florida State. Before he was a coach, Tommy was an outstanding player at Morgantown High and was on the 1971 Mohigans team that lost to East Bank in the AAA state championship game.

I continue to be amazed by the impact that Bobby Bowden still has in our state. He has not coached here since 1975 and we, stupidly, did not treat him all that well. There are life lessons to be learned from the life and career of Bobby Bowden. I heard him speak at Judson Baptist Church in Belle when I was in junior high and he was a "no-name" assistant on Jim Carlen's staff at WVU.

n Joel Hicks - A great athlete from Richwood, Hicks was a high school coach in southern West Virginia at Big Creek and Woodrow Wilson. He went on to be an assistant at WVU from 1976-78, was the coach at Pulaski County High School in Virginia for 24 years and was inducted into the Virginia High School Sports Hall of Fame in Charlottesville earlier this month.

n Scott Jones - He was an outstanding lineman at South Charleston in the early 1970s for Homer Criddle and once caught a touchdown pass on a tackle-eligible play. He was loved by all who knew him and many of his friends in South Charleston are still mourning his passing earlier this fall. Jones spent much of his life coaching, and two of his stops were at East Lee County and Mariner high school in Florida.

n Eddie Lee - Logan High School is known more for basketball than football, but Lee lit up football Friday nights in Logan County in the 1960s. He later went to West Virginia State and led the Yellowjackets to a rare West Virginia Conference football championship in 1969. Lee's coach at Logan, Elliott UIzelac, went on to be the head coach at Western Michigan and Navy and was the offensive coordinator at Ohio State in 1991.

n Willis May - The former Hurricane coach is now coaching in Florida. A Logan County native, May helped develop the Redskins into a perennial playoff team before moving south.

n Raymond McClure - McClure excelled in both football and basketball at Stonewall Jackson. He once scored 47 points in a 24-minute game for Lincoln Junior High. After graduating from Stonewall in 1972, he went to Rice to play football.

n Oscar Patrick - In the 1960s, before many high school teams were throwing the football, Patrick was a big-play wide receiver. He starred first at Excelsior and then Big Creek. Kentucky tried to recruit him to play both football and basketball, but he went on to WVU and was a star in 1967 and '68. A knee injury ended his career in 1969.

n Tim Perry - There are many state natives who are now out of state and making an impact in coaching. One of them is Perry, who graduated from DuPont High School in 1975 and has had incredible success coaching high school football in Arkansas and Alabama.

n Mike Sherwood - WVU has had better quarterbacks than Sherwood, but in the fall of 1969, he was the man, leading the Mountaineers to a 10-1 record and a win over South Carolina in the Peach Bowl. The bowl win was WVU'S first since New Year's Day of 1949. The only loss that season was a 20-0 setback at Penn State.

n Heywood Smith - He was one of many talented players to play for Delmer Good at Dunbar. Like Melvin Walker before him, Smith was also an outstanding baseball player who went on to play at WVU.

n Jerry Townson - Everybody knows him as "Moe" and he is one of the best people I know. He was an outstanding quarterback at West Virginia Tech in the 1960s and later was a longtime high school coach at many schools in the valley. His son-in-law, Brad Lambert, is the head coach at Charlotte, which defeated Marshall last week.

n Lester Weems - A multi-sport athlete, Weems was a two-way player for East Bank on the Pioneers' 1971 AAA state championship team.

Reach Frank Giardina at flg16@hotmail.com.


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