Merrifield Enters Whitfield Hall Of Fame

You know when Bernie Capps is not at his usual table at the end of the gym in the doorway watching for injuries during basketball games something important must be up. Tonight it was a former Rocky Mount High athlete and Wake Forest baseball Player entering the George Whitfield Hame of Fame.

Whitfield the legendary coach who won nearly 1000 high school and Legion games as well as coaching in various colleges in North Carolina held his 38th annual enshrinement at Goldsboro High school and one of the 18 inductees was Bill Merrifield former Rocky Mount Gryphon. The Gryphons won the State Baseball Championship in 1980 Merrifield's senior season. He then went on to Wake Forest where he became the ACC player of the year in baseball. Rocky Mount was well represented of those watching a Gryphon enter a Hall Of Fame. Those there included former football coach B W Holt.

I would love to have been there tonight as my former high school football coach Al Vaughn of Ahoskie was also enshrined. Vaughn lead Ahoskie High to two State titles in the 60's and 70's in football and was also the American legion coach in 1963 when Ahoskie played for the State title lead by Jimmy Hunter and the Coombs Brothers Freddie and Francis.

My favorite Al Vaughn story is during the 1963 Legion Finals Hunter was pitching against Siler City and about the 7th inning he walked the leadoff batter. He then proceeded to hit the next batter and loaded the bases by walking the next batter.

Vaughn called time and walked out to the mound and when he came back and sat down on the bench did not say a word. Nine pitches later Hunter now walking to the dugout and Vaughn came off the bench yelling" I told you that you could do it". Vaughn ran over to coach third base and all of the Ahoskie Guys asked Jimmy what did he tell you. Jimmy Hunter said "all he said was I'm tire of you messing around now. I want you to throw nine fastballs and come sit down beside me on the bench" and he did. He struck the next three batters out.

The high light of the entire enshrinement is the baseball clinic held tomorrow when just about every coach that knows anything about baseball will be there. The morning speaker is Fisher DeBerry the former Air Force football coach and Charlie Long of North Carolina Wesleyan will be teaching as well.

18 people go in the Hall and all most everyone would be recognizable to everyone. Rocky Mount stands tall tonight as a home town hero Bill Merrifield is one of those honored.

Not such good news in basketball as Hunt Wins on a tip in with 1.5 seconds to play beat the boys 64-62 Hunt out rebounded the Gryphons 38-24 so it was only fitting that a rebound wins the game. The girls cruise J'Kyra Bown has 26 as the Lady Gryphons go to 2-0 in conference play beating Hunt 72-48

The Camera Is Always Watching

We live in a society now-a-days that you are on a security camera just about everytime you move. You can't go any where without being watched not even to a ball game.

I get The Rocky Mount Telegram at home but it is the afternoon after I get home from work before I get a chance to read the Paper. Most of the time I have already seen the headlines before I sit down to look at the paper because I go on line and see it first there.

This past Friday night the Telegram cameras were shooting snapshots as they call it the Fan Cam of the Nash Central – Rocky Mount game. I had a chance yesterday to go through all 57 shots in which I ran across one of me and David Hahula had gotten a close up of me.

I can tell you right now it was way to close. I think it is the worse picture I have ever seen of myself.

This picture replaces one which I have considered my worse photo. Way back during my days as a hotshot disc jockey in Ahoskie I was asked by Robinson Studios in Ahoskie if they could do a portrait of me and put it in their window as advertisement. Everyone knew me so if Tony gets his pictures from Robinson why shouldn’t I kind of a deal.

If you have ever been to the picture show in Ahoskie the theatre is called the Earl. Robinson Studio was in the entrance to the theatre. If you were standing in line inside the entrance you could look over the pictures that Robinson had on display.

As a 19/20 year old hotshot disc jockey I had hair that flipped up around my collar and a mustache. I went by his studio one afternoon and for the next five years I had to look at that awful photo. Every time I went to the movies I had to look at that thing. As time went by Mr. Robinson died and hopefully that photo is lost in the city dump somewhere in Hertford County.

We all have our bad days and apparently I was having one looking at that photo. Since seeing that photo I am having flashbacks of seeing that photo in the lobby of the Earl Theatre. The only difference is I see the photo that David took there instead of the old one.

We all think we haven’t changed one bit over the years. When we look at ourselves in the mirror we see ourselves as 16 year old and not the haggard old people we really are.

That old picture from Robinson Studios hopefully has burned and there is no evidence that it exists any more. I might as well go ahead and give the Telegram warning. As soon as they removed that Fan Cam pictures and replace them with another game I will be going into their archives and try to hack that entire set of pictures. That picture has got to go. I have spent the last thirty five years trying to live down that portrait at Robinson’s. I don’t have 35 more to live this one down.

I don’t need anymore reminders of getting old and what I look like on my bad days. I say that hoping that I look better than that most days.