Hillside Fields: A History of Sports in West Virginia

by Bob Barnett

Overview

West Virginia’s championship teams at WVU and Marshall and athletic superstars like Jerry West and Mary Lou Retton are familiar to all, but few know the untold story of sports in the Mountain State. Hillside Fields: A History of Sports in West Virginia chronicles the famous athletic triumphs and heart-breaking losses of local heroes and legendary teams, recording the titanic struggles of a small state competing alongside larger rivals.
Hillside Fields provides a broad view of the development of sports in West Virginia, from one of the first golf clubs in America at Oakhurst Links to the Greenbrier Classic; from the first girls basketball championship in 1919 to post Title IX; from racially segregated sports to integrated teams; and from the days when West Virginia Wesleyan and Davis & Elkins beat the big boys in football to the championship teams at WVU, Marshall, West Virginia State and West Liberty.
Hillside Fields explains how major national trends and events, as well as West Virginia’s economic, political, and demographic conditions, influenced the development of sports in the state. The story of the growth of sports in West Virginia is also a story of the tribulations, hopes, values and triumphs of a proud people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935978671
Publisher:	West Virginia University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2013
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Bob Barnett taught sport history at Marshall University in West Virginia for 35 years. He has published over 300 articles in publications such as Saturday Evening Post, American National Biography, the Washington Post, Sports Heritage, and the Dallas Cowboy News, has been a section editor for the Journal of Sport History and the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, and has written two documentaries for West Virginia Public Television. Barnett is the author of Growing Up in the Last Small Town: A West Virginia Memoir.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xiii

1 Baseball Comes to West Virginia: A History of Minor League Baseball in the Mountain State 1

2 Oakhurst Links: From the First Golf Club in America to the Greenbrier Classic 25

3 The Beginning of Football in West Virginia: The First Three Decades, 1891-1919 53

4 Davis & Elkins Beats Navy: The Rise of College Football in the 1920s 77

5 West Virginia's "Separate but Equal Basketball Tournament" 97

6 West Virginia University and Marshall College: National College Basketball Champions 119

7 West Virginia State College: National Champions 143

8 The 1950s: The Golden Age of West Virginia University Athletics 171

9 No Field of Dreams-Not Even a Field: West Liberty's Golden Baseball Season 205

10 West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Basketball: 1935-2013 227

11 The Girls' Turn To Play: From the First State Basketball Tournament in 1919 Through Title IX and Beyond 255

12 Ashes to Glory: Marshall Football from 1960 to We Are Marshall 285

13 A Major Leads His Army: West Virginia University Football, 1960 through the Don Nehlen Years 317

14 A History of High School Sports in West Virginia 343

Epilogue: Sports in West Virginia, 2011 376

Notes 381

Bibliography 406

Index 418

About the Author 429