Kings Mountain’s Alex Goff shot a 12-under-par 204 to win the 106th Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Kentucky Amateur championship Friday in Lexington, KY.

Goff, a scholarship golfer at the University of Kentucky, shot a two-under 70 in the final round to win the title by four strokes over former champion Andy Roberts. They were the only players to shoot under par.

Goff was a four-year standout at Kings Mountain High School, finishing among the top players in the state 3A championship each spring.

After a 67 on Thursday, Goff took a three-stroke lead into Friday’s final 18-hole round.

He basically wrapped up the championship on the front nine, making four birdies that put him seven shots up at the turn.

Roberts, who was Kentucky’s Amateur champion four years ago, finished with an 8-under 208.

Due to NCAA regulations, Goff could not accept the first place prize of $750.

Goff and his teammates will begin Southeastern Conference play in the coming weeks. 

With COVID 19 delaying the start of North Carolina high school football until February, three Kings Mountain High senior standouts who had already committed to major colleges with intentions of leaving KMHS at the Christmas break had some tough decisions to make.

Kobe Paysour, the Mountaineers’ all-time leading pass receiver who will be enrolling at the University of North Carolina for the spring semester, announced last week that he would play his final prep season  with the Gaffney Indians.

Defensive end Javari Wilson and linebacker Day Day Wilson, who have committed to Fordham and Missouri, respectively, have decided to stay at KMHS and help the Mountaineers in their quest for a conference and state championship.

Paysour enrolled at Gaffney last week. The Indians are preparing for a slightly-delayed South Carolina football season that begins at home on Friday, Sept. 25 against Boiling Springs.

Paysour will make the defending state champions and longtime South Carolina power even more powerful as he will help form one of the top 1-2 pass receiver duos in the state, just as he did with Quintin Davidson last season in KM. Gaffney also returns its top pass catcher from last year’s championship team, Natron Johnson, who caught 69 passes for 802 yards.

Over his three-year career at KM, Paysour hauled in 171 passes for 3,696 yards, both career records. His 79 receptions for 26 touchdowns his junior year are also school records along with his 103-yard pass interception return for a TD in a state playoff game at Statesville in 2018.

Of course, head coach Greg Lloyd and every KM fan hates to see Paysour go. But, with the ruling by the NCHSAA not to play fall football and with him due to enroll early at Carolina, Paysour wanted to play his senior year and Lloyd supports his decision.

The Mountaineers have some talented pass receivers returning and Lloyd plans to move defensive back Titus Phillips, who was the leading receiver on the JV team as a freshman and sophomore, to Paysour’s spot. DeAndre Hoyle, who is up from the JVs, transfer Jaylen Mims and others, will also be receiving threats.

“We support Kobe’s decision,” Coach Lloyd said. “He wanted to play his senior year and if he’d stayed here he would not have been able to since he’s going to Carolina early.

“I think we’ll still be able to score a lot of points,” he said. “The offensive and defensive lines may be the best ones we’ve had since I’ve been here. I think we’ll be fine.”

Kings Mountain fans interested in attending Gaffney games should make themselves aware of South Carolina High School League’s COVID-19 restrictions. Last week the SCHSL was granted exceptions to the governor’s current restrictions to no more than 250 people or 50  percent (whichever is less) of a sports venue’s capacity. That means the Cherokee County School System will have control of its schools’ capacities. Whatever school systems decide, the SCHSL is recommending precautions such as electronic ticketing, cashless transactions, social distancing and for all spectators to wear masks at all times.

Kings Mountain’s Carl Champion, who died last week, had the perfect last name. He was a real champion to his family and friends, to Kings Mountain High and many other high schools and colleges, the City of Kings Mountain, countless charities, and to many other people and organizations he was involved with.

Growing up in the Bethware area, Champion had an early love for sports that would continue for the rest of his life. In sports and other endeavors, he gave his full support.

He made his mark on Kings Mountain sports not just on game days, but also by his generosity of money and providing free grading for most of the athletic fields at the high school and other places.

His generosity reached far and wide, as did his friends.

Shortly after he met Champion in the late 1960s at a softball game, Belmont’s Art Shoemaker became one of his closest friends.

“He always made me feel like I was part of his family,” Shoemaker said. “We immediately hit it off.”

In the late sixties Shoemaker was coaching a slowpitch softball team in Gaston County, and needed a sponsor.

“I knew of Carl,” Shoemaker recalled. “We had played him when I was coaching Groves Thread. I went to him and introduced myself. Groves was no longer going to sponsor a team. He told me he was starting a team and wanted me to help him get it off the ground. Looking back, he’s done so much for people in Kings Mountain and all over. He was generous to a fault. It’s been a great honor to know him.”

Shoemaker recalled that Champion’s team won three straight NC state championships, and one year finished third in the national tournament in York, PA.

“There won’t be another Carl Champion,” Shoemaker said. “When we started the team he wanted to play. I had gotten some top notch players in the area and I told him his name was on the jerseys as owner, but he couldn’t play. He said, ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel that’s the way it’s going to be.’ ”

In 1973, Shoemaker recalled, Champion’s team finished third in the nation behind two teams that had all paid players.

“We both decided we couldn’t compete at that level,” he said. “The best thing about coaching Carl’s team is that we became great friends. He was like a brother to me.

“It just broke my heart to see him struggling to breathe near the end,” he said. “We’d had a surprise 80th birthday for him recently and I could tell then he wasn’t feeling well.”

Champion loved his friends and loved Kings Mountain, Shoemaker said.

“If there was anything he could do for you he’d do it,” he said. “I loved him and he loved me, and I know I will see him again.”

Shoemaker agrees that Champion had the perfect last name.

“He was a champion in every sense of the word,” he said. “When he said something he meant it. He was one of the most generous men I’ve ever known.”

Champion was serious about his businesses doing things the right way. But he could have less-serious moments.

“He was the best prankster I’ve ever known,” Shoemaker said. “I will never forget one time I was officiating a middle school football game in Kings Mountain and Carl was in the stands. At halftime he called me down the sideline and pulled out a bunch of money like he was paying me off. I said ‘You put that money back.’ I knew there were a lot of people watching.”

Shoemaker said coming to KM and coaching Carl’s softball teams was one of the best things he ever did.

“He always tried to do it the right way,” he said. “We had the best amateurs in Cleveland and Gaston County. But the two teams that finished ahead of us in the national tournament were pro teams.

“Carl was a great friend of Kings Mountain athletics. I never will forget when Kings Mountain went to Chapel Hill for the state football championship in ’98. He called me and said ‘Get me four or five charter buses.’ He filled them with fans and they didn’t have to pay one penny. He was so generous. If he knew somebody needed something he would take care of it. There will never be another Carl Champion.”

Bruce Clark, who coached at KMHS in the 1980s and 1990s, echoed Shoemaker’s remarks.

“I have never had a better experience in coaching,” he said. “I coached his daughter Ashley in softball and his son Kevin in football. He’s just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He cared so much about Kings Mountain and wanted everyone to do well.

“It was not just what he did for sports, but the things he did for me personally. I was at a coach’s clinic when we were building a house. He came out and looked at the yard and said there was going to be a drainage problem. My wife called me and said he had some equipment out there. When I got home he had landscaped the yard and sowed it, and it was perfectly manicured.”

After Clark’s 1989 baseball team won the state 3A championship, Champion took the players, coaches and their wives, and others to the beach and paid the entire bill.

“He was such a great supporter of all athletes,” Clark said. “When we kept winning during the playoffs he would shoot fireworks. He came to me one day and said he wanted to take the team to the beach. He gave us a big RV so we could all ride together. We stayed for a week – the players, coaches and their wives and their parents and family.

“Carl and Dub Blalock were two of our biggest supporters,” he added. “They would take everybody to the Riverview Fish Camp in Belmont. Carl was just a fine man. He just wanted to see you have a good time and enjoy the moment.

“What he did for the Kings Mountain Hall of Fame was just amazing. He will always be a special person in my heart.

“When I was coaching in Greensboro, North Gaston and Boiling Springs Carl would just all of a sudden show up. He’d just sit with me and talk and see how things were going.

“He was an amazing man. We have lost a good one.”

As great of a supporter as he was in sports, that’s only a drop in the bucket of the good he did while on Earth. Whenever there was a need – someone was hurt in an accident, a child born with numerous health problems, supporting the Shriners Hospitals and numerous other causes, Carl Champion was there for them.

He was a true Champion!

This is the 100th year since the formation of the Negro Major League baseball league.

A man who lived the latter years of his life in Kings Mountain, Henry Frazier “Slow” Robinson, spent several seasons in the league before it merged with the Major League.

Robinson moved to Kings Mountain from California in 1989. He and his wife lived across from Ebenezer Baptist Church on Cherryville Road.

Robinson began his professional career in 1939 with the Satchel Paige All-Stars. He was Paige’s catcher. His career was interrupted in 1944-45 by World War II when he joined the U.S. Navy.

He played for the Kansas City Monarchs, New York Black Yankees, Baltimore Elite Giants and the Baltimore Greys and retired from the game in 1950.

Robinson was born in Alabama, and moved to Oklahoma at a young age. His brother Norman Robinson also played major league ball and they played together with the Elites in 1946.

Prior to moving to Kings Mountain, Robinson ran his own business, Sweep It Right Parking Lot Maintenance, in Los Angeles.
 

Fifty years ago Kings Mountain High School put one of its best teams ever on the basketball floor.

The first full five-year period after school integration proved to be one of, if not the best, in Mountaineer basketball history.

The 1966-67 and 1967-68 teams that featured All-American George Adams posted back-to-back seasons of 20-1 and 25-1, the first being upset by Marion in the first round of the WNCHSAA playoffs and the latter losing only to A.L. Brown of Kannapolis in the Western North Carolina High School Activities Association championship game.

Coached by the late Bob Hussey, the 1968-69 team featured a mostly young group of players but still managed to finish 18-5 overall and second place in the Southwestern 3A Conference behind Cherryville.

But players like Otis Cole, Charles Barnes and Phillip Francis polished their skills during that season, and in 1969-70 they and their teammates reeled off 23 straight victories before facing a giant in the WNCHSAA semi-finals.

That giant was 7-foot-4 Tommy Burleson and Avery County, who came into the KMHS gym and scored the last seven points of the game to stun the Mountaineers 63-61.

Kings Mountain led 61-56 with 1:59 remaining in the game before Burleson, who finished with 38 points, scored the last seven on an old-fashioned three-point play (a field goal and free throw, there were no three-point goals back then), a tipped-in missed shot and a 23-foot jumper at the buzzer for the game winner.

Otis Cole, who finished his senior season with 550 points and a 23.4 points per game average, went on to a great career with the Florida State Seminoles. Cole was on the FSU team that lost the NCAA national championship to John Wooden’s UCLA powerhouse in 1973.

Cole still lives in Kings Mountain and is seen regularly at Donald L. Parker Gymnasium, cheering on the Mountaineers. Barnes, who went on to become a starting guard at Appalachian State and later coached basketball in Georgia and North Carolina, averaged 18.2 points per game and had a season’s total of 436 points.

Francis, who was the #3 scorer with 238 points, joined Cole and Barnes on the All-Southwestern Conference team. Cole played in the East-West All-Star game and also made the All-American team.

The 1970 team’s toughest games in the SWC were against the Crest Chargers and their superstar, David Thompson, who would later join Burleson to lead NC State to the national championship. Both of those games went down to the wire.

Other members of the ’70 team were Steve Gladden, Roger Smith, Jewel Watson, Geeper Howard, Ben Brown, Bobby Ethridge, M. White, Chuck Carpenter, Randolph Ross, Wilson Ledford, Chuck Easley and Andy Neisler.
— KM Herald

A third Kings Mountain High School football player has announced his college choice as well as the probability of leaving school at the semester break.

Javari Wilson, the Mountaineers’ all-star defensive end, will be attending Fordham University in New York City.

Last year’s Big South 3A Conference Defensive Lineman of the Year received numerous other offers from schools like Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Campbell, Western Carolina, The Citadel, College of Charleston, Akron and Gardner-Webb.

“I really like the atmosphere up there and being in the Big Apple, and the relationship with my position coach, Kenny Anunkie,” Wilson gave as the reason for choosing the Rams. “He was previously at Ohio State and was one of the better players in the NFL.”

Anunkie was a two-time All-ACC defensive lineman at Duke and the Blue Devils’ all-time sack leader. He is also the associate head coach at Fordham.

Wilson said he is undecided on his major. “But I feel like I am good enough to compete as a true freshman and I trust my defensive line coach to help me do well.”

The Rams run a 4-3 defense and a spread offense, both very familiar to the Kings Mountain product.

“They had a 4-8 record last year but I plan to help them improve that,” he said. “With electrifying talent we hope to change the mentality of their game in the Patriot League.”

Wilson was a three-year starter in high school, playing running back and fullback at Gastonia Forestview his freshman year and defensive end the last two seasons at Kings Mountain.

“I am expecting Kings Mountain to have a good year,” he said. “We have good coaches and good players. I don’t want that to end. Since my freshman year we’ve had great teams. I think the transition to college will be smooth with everything good.

“I feel like Kings Mountain will be a great team even if a couple of us leave,” he added. “I think they can still make it to the state championship.”

Other KM standouts who have already made college commitments are UNC-bound wide receiver Kobe Paysour, and Wilson’s cousin linebacker Dameon “Day  Day” Wilson, who is going to the University of Missouri.

“Day-Day and I are cousins, but we’re more like brothers,” Javari said. “We’ve been together since we were little.”

Javari is the son of Nataya and Brenton Wilson. They live between Kings Mountain and Grover.

“I am really looking forward to Fordham,” he said. “I have to mainly get stronger and faster. The next level is fast. I want to adapt as quickly as I can and be knowledgeable of the game and film study.”

Wilson had 62 solo tackles and a team-high 11 sacks for the Mountaineers last year. He led the Big South in sacks.

He begins his in-school classes at KMHS on Thursday.

“I want to truly thank the coaches and the whole community for their support while I was in Kings Mountain,” Wilson said. “I will always carry that throughout my career.”

Sports fans anxious to get out and support their favorite high school teams will have a wait a little longer.

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association last week announced that no sports will begin until November; and football will not be played until early next year.

Que Tucker, executive director of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, announced the following schedule for sports:

The Kings Mountain Touchdown Club held its annual golf tournament Friday at Kings Mountain Country Club with well over 100 golfers participating. All profits from the tourney will be used as a payment on the club's artificial turf and tennis projects at Kings Mountain High School.


KM Touchdown Club
golf tourney winners

 Winners of last week’s Kings Mountain Touchdown Club golf tournament included:

First flight – Brad Moffitt, Steven Dellinger, Billy Crease and Zach Harris.

Second flight – DeWayne Clark, John Smith, Dexter Tate and Gerald Putnam.

Third flight – Chris Jolly, Jim Jolly, Erin Jolly and Michael Jolly.

Fourth flight – Josh Skibo, Trey Robinson, Tai Robinson and Cody Barrett.

Fifth flight – Louis Sabetti, Chris Bullock, Michael Sabetti and Allan McNamara.

Closest to the pin on #17 – Kenneth Barker.

Closest to the pin on #5 – Jason Bridges.

Closest to the pin on #12 – Austin Black.

Closest to the pin on #8 – Josh Skibo.

Senior longest drive – David “Big Mac” McDaniel.

Women’s longest drive – Sarah Drennan.

Men’s longest drive – Mark Ham.
 

The Kings Mountain Touchdown Club auction begins Thursday at 9 a.m. and runs through Saturday at 6 p.m. You can place bids 24 hours a day.

There are lots of great prizes to bid on. There are a big variety of prizes for both men and women.

Everyone must register in order to place a bid. Hit the big KM on Facebook and it will take you directly to the auction website or enter www.qtego.net/qlink/kingsmountain on your browser to access the website.

As of now, Kings Mountain and other high school football teams in North Carolina can begin pre-season practice on September 1, which is a month later than usual.
Que Tucker, executive director of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, announced the start for fall sports last week.
The first eight days have to be workouts only, KMHS athletic director Matt Bridges explains, meaning the first game would be around September 17.
At this point, Bridges said, he does not believe the NCHSAA would cancel the season or move it to the spring.
“I feel like the state association would adjust the schedule before they would do that,” he said. “I think they’d have a shorter season or playoff so we could finish up by Christmas. Some football coaches around the state have mentioned moving it to the spring, but I really don’t think that will happen.”
Bridges said he expects other sports’ seasons would also be adjusted.
“Basically, we’re just sitting and waiting,” he said. “I think they’re probably polling all the school boards in the state to see what they’re going to do.
“Because we’re still in Phase One for sports, there’s nothing we can do except conditioning,” he noted. “We do know the first week of school (August 17-23) will be a dead period. I think the state association is doing a survey on which schools will be open to students and which will be virtual or a combination of the two.
“I think they want to get a full season in, even though it might be adjusted by either shortening the regular season or the playoffs. They want to get it in safely. Hopefully we can go to stage 3 soon.”
Most KMHS fall sports have been working out for a couple of weeks. The football team works out Monday through Thursday mornings; soccer, cross country and volleyball are working out a couple days a week and tennis will begin soon.
“All of the teams have to have social distancing,” he noted. “They can’t hit or share equipment or anything. They can use balls but two people can’t touch the same ball. Getting to stage 3 is really important.”
Bridges said because of the uncertainty about the beginning of the sports year, the high school is not yet selling passes.
“Once we know for sure what the situation looks like, we will adjust the prices of all of our sports passes, reserved seating and parking and let the public know about it,” he said.

The pool is now open at the YMCA. There are several safety measures in place to comply with the new state guidelines to keep everyone safe.

Hours:

• Monday – Friday: 12 pm – 6 pm The pool is available for YMCA members beginning at 12 pm and for community members from 2 pm – 6 pm.

• Saturday: 10 am – 6 pm

• Sunday: 2 pm – 6 pm

• Cost: $3 per guest and free for YMCA members

The YMCA is offering swim lessons whether you prefer group or private lessons. We have both options available throughout July and August. There are swim lessons available in the evenings throughout the week for kids ages 3 – 14. Session times vary between 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm.

• Group Swim Lessons: $35 for members or $55 for non-members.

• Private Swim Lessons: $50 for members or $85 for non-members.

• Financial Assistance is available upon request.

The YMCA is also offering birthday parties at the pool with a maximum of 20 guests.  For more information please contact Aquatics Director, Michael Peeler at 704.669.3687.

Be sure to social distance while at the pool. There will be a limited capacity of 60 people total at the pool and only 35 in the pool; so be sure to get a spot! We ask that families limit their pool visit to 2 hours to accommodate capacity guidelines.

Please note that we will not have any chairs or picnic tables available. Be sure to bring your own chair! Also, you will need to bring your own US Coast Guard approved life jackets and puddle jumpers. We have lifeguards on duty to ensure a fun and safe time.

 As of now, Kings Mountain and other area high schools will be able to begin outside fall sports conditioning July 6. 

Athletes were driving by the high school Monday through Wednesday of this week to pick up information from their coaches. 

Next week is a dead week for all North Carolina High School Athletic Association members. During that time there can be no type of workouts or conditioning.

All athletic teams are required to obey safe distancing policies as well as having no more than 25 people in a single group, including coaches. That number probably won’t affect any sport except football but KMHS has enough practice and playing fields to safely obey the requirements. 

All teams are limited to 90 minutes a day. Until further notice, fans are not allowed to attend

— KM Herald