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The OrangeLine Online, Vol. 4 Issue 5 |
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Home | Welcome | Feature | Campus Life | Alumni Connections | Athletics | Wesleyan Memory | Archive |
Memory
Question
This month, while students are taking a break from the rigors of the classroom, we want to find out what was your hardest class at Wesleyan? Tell us the class, the professor, and what made it do difficult and we will share it with your fellow classmates in next month’s issue. Share memory or story by contacting the Alumni Office via e-mail at alumni@wvwc.edu or by phone at (304) 473-8509.
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Responses to Last Month's Question
Last month we asked you to share you favorite memories of Hank Ellis…Here are your responses… In response to your request for stories and memories of Hank Ellis, I respond as one who shared early and sometimes distant but always interesting relationships with him as a student and basketball player. There were others in a better position than I to respond, but as I consider it, a large percentage of them are no longer able to share. So, I write to provide a perspective from which personal experience may be passing with time. And, even though more limited than others, if living, might have provided, I don't want this time to pass without some light shining on this worthy subject. Hank was a senior in Buckhannon-Upshur High School when I, as a freshman, first came to know him. He played on the school basketball team that year. It may have been one of the school's best ever. Though they didn't win the state and didn't have a "big" man on the team, they did have Bob Neff who went on to play tackle for Notre Dame. Frank Feola and Ralph Brown of Wesleyan fame and as I recall "Sawbuck" Tenney and Dutch Travis were also on that team. You might easily guess who the star was. Hank was quite often the high point man and shot deftly from the corner---usually making eight or nine of ten overhead shots. It was very difficult to defend. In the meantime he was a very good off court example for all of us aspiring student athletes to follow. Incidentally Freal "Red" Crites, a Wesleyan graduate, was the coach. The high school has had other good basketball teams who have done better in state high school basketball competition, but as teams from different years can be compared, I doubt if any have been any better. When Johnnie Myers and I were assistant coaches for Frank Feola at the school in the 50's, we went to the state final eight and won our first game. Tommy Rutherford and Wayne Kiddy chose Wesleyan from that team. I can't remember---did they play for Hank? Hank, of course, went on to Wesleyan after high school. He played during the next four years. Some of the names from that era, I believe, were Sam Gwosden, "Doll" Vandervert, Ken and Jack Moore along with Hank's high school teammates of Frank Feola and Ralph Brown. Chet Marshall and Herb Sharp fit in there somewhere also. Mr. Ellis continued his overhead shot along with all-around good play. They did well on the court, but also in the classroom and on the campus. In my senior year at BUHS, our team was ranked fourth in the state, but we lost to West Fairmont in the regional tourney. From that team, Jim Andrick and I came to Wesleyan in the fall of 1942. John Wolfe got a basketball scholarship to WVU and Roland Rutherford went to Marietta to play both football and basketball. That year 1942-43 saw a number of students and athletes selected or volunteer for military service because of World War II. Hank, I believe, made it through the year, thus was there for the full basketball season. If not, he was there long enough to help us scare WVU's basketball team on our home court. Dave Reemsnyder was the coach since Cebe Ross had joined the service unit. Because of all the shuffling, freshmen were permitted to play that year, so Andrick and I along with Harold Ellis were able to join the team. Some were there, then gone, so we struggled for continuity. The other upperclassmen who made it through the season were Kenny Knox, Ralph Brown, Herb Sharp and Chet Marshall. That was my first opportunity to play with Hank whom I had admired since my freshman year in high school. What an adjustment it must have been for him. He handled it as a real pro and did his best to "coach" and help the rest of us---especially the newcomers. He was one of the most outstanding players to come from the state and could have gone to any number of schools on a basketball scholarship, but he chose and remained loyal to Wesleyan. He had played and competed against Scotty Hamilton from Grafton while in high school. Scotty chose the University. In '41-42 West Virginia won the NIT when it was the prestige tourney following the regular season. Scotty was their star. We played them at home in '42-43 where Hank and Scotty, both seniors, continued their long standing competition. We were leading by three points as time expired. Contrary to all good basketball coaching, Scotty was fouled by an unnamed freshman, while taking a last second shot. He not only made that basket, but the following foul shot to tie the score. They beat us in overtime! Our scrimmages were always spirited and played to further our skills as well as win. After practice, we often checked to see if Hank had four elbows, because it seemed that way on the court. He always proved to be normal---just intense and competitive while on the floor. Off the court he was always pleasant and helpful, setting an example for us younger guys to follow. We shall always be grateful for his push and his carrots. Thanks Hank from me and many others who learned to know you as a person and a teammate along your shining way. Though not all can voice it to you now---we remain appreciative that there was and still is a Hank Ellis. I was a relief pitcher for Hanks Ellis' 1952-53 Bobcats. We had a team of veteran and wannabe players; I was a "veteran" of high school baseball. I wasn't big or a fast thrower, but I could get the ball where I wanted it. Hank Ellis must have seen this because he used me on occasion. I thought he was a good coach and a fair coach and he treated me well despite my mediocre baseball abilities. I am proud of my limited college baseball experience and I have that memory because of Hank Ellis. Hank Ellis = admired, respected, and liked. As I look back on the coach in l956, I think of him a senior or recent graduate. He had so much enthusiasm! “Come on guys get over here and talk this over.” Always a fond memory to have a coach like Hank around. During my undergraduate days at Wesleyan, Hank Ellis was "the basketball and baseball coach" and all of us admired his abilities in these positions. When I returned to Wesleyan in 1965 to assume the responsibilities of director of alumni affairs I had the opportunity to get to know Hank, and his family, on a personal basis. This gentleman (and he truly is a gentleman) had such a personal interest in the students at Wesleyan -- not just the basketball players or baseball players but ALL students. In meetings or in confabs in the faculty lounge he always asked how it would affect the students when anything pertaining to them was discussed. His team members have reflected what he did with them when he coached them. Many, fine citizens, that have been successful, owe Hank Ellis, in part, for what kind of people they turned out to be. His family also reflected his kindness and concern for others. Hank was the type of coach and professor that every parent hopes their son or daughter will be influenced by in college. At some point during my four years at Wesleyan I became aware that Coach Ellis was a Naval Reserve officer and apparently spent two weeks every summer on active duty. This fact didn’t really mean much to me at the time, and I’m not sure why I even remembered it. After graduating in ’61, and facing the draft, I found myself enlisting and eventually winding up as a Navy officer. At various times during ’64 thru ’68, I was stationed in Norfolk, VA. One evening while I was sitting at the bar at the Breezy Point Naval Air Station Officers Club I glanced toward the end of the bar and lo and behold there was Coach Ellis. He was apparently on his two weeks of active duty. I went over and introduced myself to him and we chatted for a while. I had the feeling that he was slightly embarrassed having been “outed” by a former student. Those of you from my era will remember that drinking was forbidden both on campus and in town at that time and the Dean of Men, Pop Shaver would often check out the bars in town looking for students. As I headed onto the court, it didn't take me long to realize that I was the target of a vast majority of their student body standing on their feet and yelling down various kinds of epithets, racial and otherwise. My teammates patted me on the back numerous times during warm-ups and told me to ignore the crowd. I realized rather quickly that I was not only the sole black player on Wesleyan's team, but, in all likelihood, the only African American in the entire basketball arena that night. When the game started, the crowd really started to bombard me on the court with all kinds of visual distractions. My coach, Hank Ellis, surely sensed my discomfort and so he started standing up, walking the sideline, and yelling at the officials and anybody who would listen. He literally "made a fool of himself" in order to turn the attention of the crowd onto his shoulders and away from me. IT WORKED!!! I was able to play the game without incident and with great vigor. We lost the game, but, the respect I had for Coach Ellis grew immensely after that, and he will remain in my heart forever. My memories of Coach Ellis are plentiful, but a personal memory was the Coach as my golf instructor during the times when PT classes were held daily for half of a semester. One day the class was scheduled to go to the Buckhannon golf course for the day. At the same time of that session, Margaret Mead, the acclaimed American anthropologist, was speaking at Atkinson, so I skipped the penultimate session of the golf class. Hearing Dr. Mead’s talk was one of my highlights of my days at Wesleyan. Afterwards when I spoke to the guys who were in my golf class, I had to laugh when I heard that Coach Ellis had the guys run the golf course and they never swung a club. That made skipping the class double rewarding for me. Hank Ellis is one of the most remarkable men I have ever known. I am grateful for the opportunity to know Hank rather well and to share my little story. In recent years he has been afflicted with health problem after health problem, broken bones, and yet he perseveres. Fairly recently, I commented to him that most people his age would have checked out years ago. His response: "They give up, John. I won't give up." That is just one characteristic of this special man and wonderful friend. There are, no doubt, scores of Wesleyan alums who have their favorite "Hank Ellis Story." Having known him since 1958, when as a 16-year-old I started watching one of the best college teams in state history, I have my share of Hank stories, and I know heard many others down through five decades. After all, I covered his basketball and baseball teams for The Republican Delta, then scored as scorekeeper and statistician for Hank, even as basketball manager (which was to help sustain me financially at Wesleyan). Heck, he and Bill Pugh even allowed me to coach the freshman basketball team when I was a senior, and I "retired" from coaching with a 3-2 record. He and my mother knew each other when they were kids. He knew my grandfather, who raised me. So there was a long-standing connection between my family and Hank but one story involved me, and it revealed the character and generosity of a great, wonderful and caring man and a true friend. As my senior year (1966-67) arrived, I found myself $400 short, and my grandfather, a tight-fisted man, would not spring for that. One afternoon, I went into Hank's office, not to seek financial support but to think out loud with him about my circumstance. He listened to my short recitation, then jumped up from behind his desk: "Come on, John. Go with me." We got into his car and drove down to the Central National Bank, where he explained to Bill Young my dilemma, then promptly co-signed a note for that amount. I still swell up with gratitude when I think about that story. It isn't a humorous Hank Ellis story, of which there are scores upon scores. It was amazing gesture, and I was flabbergasted then as I am still grateful after all these years. From my freshman year and through the intervening years Hank Ellis has been a father figure for me, and I shall always be grateful. I visit him, but not enough, and I always feel guilty about that. That's the human side of a great coach who won more than 300 games in basketball, won conference championships, took his team to national tournaments, coached first-team All-Americans in three sports, and helped developed more than a few outstanding coaches in high school and college. He did it with integrity, honesty and sincerity. He remains my champion, and I love him dearly. I remember Coach Ellis from my work study at the gym. I found him to be a very knowledgeable and a likable coach. Anytime I saw him on campus or around Buckhannon he always remembered me. How could I ever forget…TEAM! It’s a concept! – Hank Ellis I have several memories and lessons learned during my time spent with Coach Ellis. During the years 1978-1982, I had him for golf, basketball, and Team Sports basketball (in J term). In those classes you got some of the same advice and heard some of the same stories, all good and entertaining. A few things I recall include that when he wanted you to know he knew something about athletics and basketball in particular he would say something to the effect of ”I had a cup of coffee with the Lakers.” One of his better lines I still remind my self of to this day and live by is “the problem with most Americans is that they think about getting a little exercise and then roll over on the couch and take a nap.” Whenever I start to think about not exercising, this comes to mind and I get my butt in gear. During my junior year I ran cross country for Coach Ellis and his instructions were to “run” down hill not let up or slow down. You could make up time by maintaining your pace but because it was downhill, you were not using as much energy. I benefited from that advice throughout cross country and many road races after my years at Wesleyan. While attending Wesleyan, I wrote a paper on athletics. I asked Mr. Ellis for an interview. I recently found this tape and listened to portions of it. This was in, I think 1995. Man he was sharp. His memory was incredible. I can barely remember yesterday, let alone recalling detailed information of years ago. One thing that stood out while talking with him was his love and devotion to the college and all its athletics. It was if he was telling old stories about an old buddy or speaking lovingly about a family member. He was an incredible athlete, coach, and alumni and I am honored to have spent an afternoon with him.
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