Kelly Rodriguez '30
Bill Smith '60
Linda Bauer-John '95
Jim Warner

Kelly Rodriguez ’30
The late Kelly Rodriguez ’30 will be inducted into the West Virginia Wesleyan Athletic Hall of Fame this Saturday as part of the College’s Homecoming festivities.

Rodriguez, a native of Newark, NJ, was a four-year letterman in football and a two-year member of the track and field team. He was a key member of Wesleyan’s first conference championship team in 1926 as a freshman and was named All-WVIAC in 1928 and 1929. Rodriguez played under the legendary Bobcat coach Cebe Ross and was a teammate at Wesleyan to future NFL Hall of Famer Clifford “Gip” Battles.

Nicknamed the Spanish Armada, Rodriguez was a versatile player for the Bobcats, being used as a quarterback, running back, and punter. One of Rodriguez’s more memorable games came against Marshall on Thanksgiving Day in Huntington. The Bobcats entered the game with a 0-4 record, but Rodriguez threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Battles and scored on a short rushing touchdown to lead Wesleyan to a stunning 28-0 blanking off the Thundering Herd.

Off the field, he a played intra-mural basketball and was a member of the varsity club and the YMCA.

Rodriguez was also one of the first Latin-American players to join the National Football League. He is documented by the NFL as its third Latin-American player. He played in the league from 1930-31 for the Frankford Yellow Jackets and the Minneapolis Red Jackets. Two of his pro career highlights include throwing a game winning 25-yard touchdown pass to lead Frankford to a 7-3 victory over Staten Island and catching a five-yard touchdown pass from Art Pharmer against Green Bay in a 25-7 loss. Rodriguez also played against the legendary Red Grange of the Chicago Bears.

Bill Smith’ 60
West Virginia Wesleyan College’s legendary basketball coach, Hank Ellis, called him “the ideal basketball player, a real pleasure to coach.” His teammate, All-American Gary Hess, said he was the toughest player he played against ---and that was in team practices in the venerable old gymnasium on the Wesleyan campus.

Now Bill Smith joins three of his teammates in the Wesleyan Athletic Hall of Fame, where their 1959 squad also is enshrined, remembered four decades later as one of the best college basketball teams in the state’s history. Like Smith, those three teammates all garnered All-America honors.

“Smitty” also excelled in track, leading the Bobcats to the 1960 West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference track championship with an amazing 22 ½ performance. His events were the high jump, broad jump, the 100-yard and 220-yard runs.

Ellis named Smith his team captain when the Bobcats were 23-6 and made their third consecutive trips to the NAIA national championship in Kansas City, MO. He also was an outstanding student and was elected senior class president.

Smith was a lightning-quick 6-2 guard who could take it to the hoop in a flash, leaving defenders grasping for air. Or he could hit mid-range jump shots with deadly accuracy. However, it was on defense that he truly excelled, always called on by Ellis to guard the other team’s toughest scorer.

He also was one of four All-Americans on the 1959 and 1960 teams. Imagine--four All-Americans playing on one team in a two-year period. During Smith’s four-year career, the Bobcats won 83 percent of their games – 105 wins against only 21 losses.

Hess said those practice sessions were what made Wesleyan such a great team. The 1959 team had a 34-2 record, its second consecutive 30-win season. “Our practices were tougher than our games,”said Hess. “There was great competition between the whole group, and it brought out the best in each of us.”

Smith was a fierce defensive player whose signature play was not just blocking a foe’s shot, but taking the ball away, throwing it to the point guard and frequently finishing off a fast break with a lay-up after he blazed down court.

Smith never had to score prolifically because he always had at least three teammates who scored in double figures, led by All-American Jim McDonald, when he led the nation in scoring for much of the season. But Smith could score on those lightning drives, or with a fade-away jump shot. During his career, he averaged 14.6 points per game while shooting an incredible 54 percent.

Closing out his career in the NAIA national tournament in Kansas City, MO, Smith had a perfect offensive game against Valley City (N.D.) College. He made all 11 shots he took from the floor and the only foul shot.

That performance sealed second-team All-America honors for Smith, along with an invitation to try out for the NAIA Olympic team at Denver, CO. Smith made the squad but never got to play because of a sprained ankle sustained in practice.

Linda Bauer-John ’95
Linda Bauer-John has the distinction of leading the West Virginia Wesleyan women’s soccer team as both a player and as a coach.

The native of Dundalk, MD, played four seasons from 1991 to 1994 and was the head coach of the squad from 1997 to 1999. Playing for coach Mindy Quigg her first three seasons and her senior season for Nikki Izzo, West Virginia University’s head coach, she finished fourth on Wesleyan’s all-time goals list with 42 and 12th in assists with 13. In 1991, she set a Wesleyan single-season record with 19 goals.

Her senior year, she scored 11 goals and dished out four assists to lead the Lady Bobcats to a 13-5 record and as the NAIA District 28 runner-up. For her senior-season efforts, she was named on the All-American First Team.

As a coach, she compiled a record of 35-5-4, the highest winning percentage in Lady Bobcat history. Her 1997 team was runner-up in the NCAA II tournament.

This Saturday, Bauer-John will be honored for her accomplishments as she will be inducted into the Wesleyan Athletic Hall of Fame during Homecoming Weekend.

Jim Warner
While athletes come and go at West Virginia Wesleyan College, there has been one constant over the last 30 years on the Bobcat sidelines and press boxes and that has been James (Jim) Warner.

Warner has extensively covered every athletic team on the Wesleyan campus and beyond, from Buckhannon to Mexico City for a basketball game, he has been bleeding Orange and Black for over three decades. He will be honored for his service and dedication to Wesleyan this Saturday as he will be inducted into the College’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

In July 1975, Warner, better known as “Mr. Sports” around Upshur County, retired after a 20-year career in the U.S. Air Force and joined the then Republican Delta newspaper as its sports editor. And for the next 31-plus years, the 1952 graduate of Buckhannon-Upshur High School has covered everything Wesleyan and beyond. In addition to covering the athletic contests, he has provided Wesleyan and its coaches individual and team statistics since 1975. He also served a volunteer stint in the mid-80’s as sports information director under athletic director Kent Carpenter.

Warner, a graduate of Glenville State, retired from the Record Delta in 2004 but is still active covering Wesleyan athletics including football, baseball, and softball and still makes his annual trip to Florida to cover the baseball team’s spring break tour.
“You do not go into this business looking for a pat on the back,” remarked Warner. “But this is probably the biggest pat on the back of all. This has really been a humbling experience. I have enjoyed every minute of covering Wesleyan athletics.”

Remarked head football coach Bill Struble, “Jim is a sportswriter that really has an excellent knowledge of athletics and athletes. He is professional in every sense of preparing to cover an athletic event. His articles have never blasted a team or coach at the amateur level regardless of a poor performance. He takes pride in being accurate and never tries to put a negative spin on any situation. Jim has given thousands of athletes at Wesleyan recognition in the Buckhannon community and has helped with our record keeping or anything else that we have ever asked of him. It is an honor to have worked with Jim and Bobcat Football the last 24 years, he is a true friend.”

In 2004, he was honored with the “Gene Morehouse Memorial Award,” presented by Marshall University and the West Virginia Sports Writers Association for outstanding journalistic contributions. In 2002, he was the first member to be inducted into the Buckhannon Post 7 Baseball Hall of Fame and he was inducted into the Buckhannon-Upshur Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004.

Warner performed almost the same duties during his 20 years in the Air Force. He edited several award-winning newspapers, and served as news director for an Armed Forces Radio Station. He worked as a sports writer for more than three years with the Pacific Stars & Stripes in Tokyo, Japan, during which time he helped cover the 1964 World Olympics, and events in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, the Philippines, Okinawa, Guam and throughout Japan. Warner served a year of combat duty at Bien Hoa Air base, South Vietnam as Combat News Chief flying numerous missions in a variety of aircrafts and accompanying U.S. and South Vietnam forces on missions into the field.