Eight Named To Join NCHSAA Hall of Fame

From the NCHSAA (nchsaa.org)

CHAPEL HILL—Eight more outstanding individuals in the annals of state prep athletics have been selected for induction into the North Carolina High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame.
Rosalie Barden of Wilson, Sheila Boles of Wilmington, Jimmy Fleming of Creedmore, John Frye of Vass, Jerry Johnson of Goldsboro, the late Mike Matheson of Catawba, the late John Morris of High Point, and Tom Suiter of Raleigh have been named as the 26th group of inductees to join the prestigious hall. That brings to 140 the number enshrined.

The new inductees will be honored during special halftime ceremonies at a football game at Kenan Stadium on Saturday, September 10, when North Carolina takes on Rutgers. The University of North Carolina has designated the day as the 27th annual NCHSAA Day. The new class will officially be inducted at the special Hall of Fame banquet next spring in Chapel Hill.

The NCHSAA Hall of Fame is supported in part by a special grant from GlaxoSmithKline.

"These individuals joining the Association Hall of Fame this year have had a tremendous impact on high school athletics across North Carolina," said NCHSAA commissioner Davis Whitfield. "Their accomplishments are impressive, but the character they exemplify and the lives they touched are truly representative of what the NCHSAA stands for. Their selection maintains the standards of excellence established by our previous inductees, and we are proud to honor these deserving individuals."

Rosalie Bardin
Rosalie Bardin has been an outstanding coach and administrator during her career in education. After graduating from Lucama High School and then magna cum laude from Atlantic Christian (now Barton) College, Bardin began a stellar run at Southern Nash Senior High School, where she coached women's basketball for 12 years, volleyball for 18, track and field for seven, and softball for 24, including the transition from slow pitch to fast pitch. She also served as cheerleading coach and athletic trainer during her tenure at Southern Nash.

She compiled a brilliant record in slow pitch of 373-130 and her fast pitch mark was an outstanding 71-11. Her teams earned 15 conference championships in softball, one state championship in slow pitch in 1995 and a runner-up finish in fast pitch. Bardin moved into administration in 1998 and wound up serving as principal at Southern Nash for several years, where she has twice been Nash-Rocky Mount Principal of the Year.

Sheila Boles
Sheila Boles compiled an impressive record as a coach in several sports, but is perhaps best known as the first woman to coach a men's varsity basketball high school team in North Carolina. A graduate of Seventy-First High School in Fayetteville, where she was a three-sport star, Boles was the first female scholarship athlete at UNC Wilmington, where she was a standout in volleyball and basketball. She began her teaching and coaching career at the junior high level and then in 1989 went to Hoggard in Wilmington. She coached men's basketball for 11 years of her almost 20 there, men's golf for eight and women's golf for two and was also athletic director.

Her career coaching record in basketball included more than 300 victories, with a 167-120 men's hoops mark at Hoggard and a school record 24 wins in one season. Her men's golf teams won five conference titles and finished in the top five in the state four times. She has won a number of awards previously, including the NCHSAA Courage Award, NCHSAA Athletic Director of the Year and served on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Athletic Directors Association.

Jimmy Fleming
Jimmy Fleming is one of the state's outstanding coaches in softball but also coached men's basketball, track, football, baseball and cheerleading during his career at South Granville.

A graduate of Creedmoor High and East Carolina University, Fleming is best remembered for his success in softball. His teams did win four men's conference basketball championships, but in softball South once won 14 consecutive league titles and a whopping 164 conference games in a row to go with a 54 consecutive game win streak that spanned three different seasons. His teams won five NCHSAA slow-pitch state championships, finished second twice and then made the transition successfully to fast pitch, winning one state crown in that version.

A member of the NCHSAA Board of Directors from 1990 through '94, Fleming also served as athletic director at South Granville for many years. He coached in the North Carolina Coaches Association East-West all-star basketball game in 1986.

John Frye
Although John Frye has spent his entire teaching and coaching career in Moore County, he has had a tremendous impact across the state in the sport of tennis. A graduate of Carthage High School (1962) and Appalachian State University (1967), he started his coaching career in 1968 at Union Pines High School and has coached in an amazing six decades. He has coached both men's and women's tennis, winning almost 50 conference championships and earning state team championships in both men's and women's tennis. The number of dual match wins Frye has earned in men's tennis is approaching 600.
In addition, he has been a great supporter of the sport of tennis and has directed numerous conference, regional and state championship events during his career. He was the championship director of 29 different NCHSAA state finals.

Jerry Johnson
Jerry Johnson has had a stellar career in officiating as both a game official and booking agent.
A graduate of Orange High School and North Carolina A&T State University, Johnson spent 30 years in education, 26 in the Wayne County system and 15 of those as assistant principal at Dillard Middle School. His contributions in the area of officiating, however, are enormous.

He has umpired high school baseball for 36 years, calling over 3,200 games and five NCHSAA state championship series along with 22 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) tournaments. In football, his career spans 35 years and well over 1,000 games, including two NCHSAA state championships, an NCAA Division II national championship, and numerous CIAA championship games. His basketball career includes 26 years and almost 1,800 games, including a couple NCHSAA state 4-A women's championships.

Active in his church in Goldsboro, he has earned numerous awards, including the Association's coveted Golden Whistle Award in 2008.

Mike Matheson
The late Mike Matheson had his coaching career cut short by his untimely death due to cancer at age 41, but he compiled a remarkable legacy primarily in women's basketball at Bandys High School in Catawba County.

A graduate of South Iredell who earned his college degree at Appalachian State University, he had an unprecedented run of success coaching the varsity women's basketball team at Bandys from 1979 to '89. His Bandys teams during those 10 years posted an incredible record of 268-29 and won four NCHSAA state championships, in 1981, '82, '87 and '88. Those teams won 10 conference championships and lost only four games on their home floor in 10 years.

Matheson founded a basketball camp to raise money for underprivileged children that was later named in his memory. He is a member of the Catawba County Sports Hall of Fame.

John Morris
The late John Morris was an outstanding coach and athletic administrator prior to his death at the age of 48. Morris graduated from Perquimans High School and then from Duke University in 1958, where he had played football and baseball.

He coached football and baseball at Roxboro, posting a record in football there of 62-18-4, before moving to Reidsville for a seven-year stint as coach and athletic director from 1967 to '74. He coached two seasons at High Point Andrews before leaving active coaching in 1976, when his diabetic condition wound up leading to the amputation of both legs. His career coaching mark was 120-58-6.
From 1976 until his untimely death in 1984, however, he served as athletic director for the High Point City schools. He was president of the North Carolina Athletic Directors Association in 1973-74.

Tom Suiter
Legendary sports television anchor Tom Suiter enjoyed a tremendous career at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, and high school athletics was an integral part of it.

Suiter, a native of Rocky Mount, attended Christ School in Arden and then went to Erskine College in Due West, S.C. Upon graduation from Erskine in 1971, he joined at WRAL and moved from weekend anchor and sports reporter to the weekday sports anchor, staying there for his entire career and retirement from full-time broadcasting in 2008.

He anchored the award winning Football Friday show on Friday nights, pioneering coverage of so many games in a single show starting in 1981 and is still running today. The Extra Effort Awards were started at the station under his direction, honoring a high school student-athlete who excels on the field or court as well as in the classroom. He has previously been named the winner of the annual Media Representative of the Year by the NCHSAA.

The Hall of Fame plaques are on permanent display in the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s Hall of Fame room, located in the Simon F. Terrell Building in Chapel Hill that houses the Association offices.