Eight Named To Join NCHSAA Hall of Fame
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.
Bobby Guthrie of Raleigh, Jack Huss of Rutherfordton, Lindsey Linker of Chapel Hill, Shelly Marsh of Smithfield, Dave Odom of Winston-Salem, Cindi Simmons of Webster, Sam Story of Burlington and Ron Vincent of Greenville have been named as the 27th group of inductees to join the prestigious hall. That brings to 156 the number enshrined.
The new inductees will be honored during special halftime ceremonies at a football game at Kenan Stadium on Saturday, October 26, when North Carolina takes on Boston College. The University of North Carolina has designated the day as the 29th 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.”
Bobby Guthrie
Bobby Guthrie has excelled as a teacher and coach as well as an administrator during his illustrious career.
Born in Alamance County, he attended Southern Alamance High School and then graduated from University of North Carolina in 1974, where he was an outstanding baseball player. He started his coaching career by working three years at Scotland High, where he led his team to the NCHSAA state 4-A baseball championship. Then Guthrie embarked on college coaching, including 13 years at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
After brief stints at Wilmington Laney and Apex, Guthrie became the senior administrator for athletics for the Wake County schools and earned a number of awards there..
A former member of the Boards of Directors of both the NCHSAA and the North Carolina Athletic Directors Association, Guthrie has also been recognized nationally for his contributions to coaches education. He was the National Federation Coach Educator of the Year in 2010 and is in the Southern Alamance Hall of Fame.
Jack Huss
Jack Huss has compiled an impressive slate as a high school and college coach but also has had a stellar career as an official.
A graduate of R-S Central, Huss was an outstanding football and baseball player at Lenoir-Rhyne College, graduating in 1969. He was one of the youngest head football coaches in the country at the college level when he coached at L-R from 1974 to 1980. He also served as head football coach at Richmond Senior (1980-83), Hunter Huss (1985-86) and R-S Central (1987-95), and also coached golf for 11 years and served as athletic director at R-S Central.
Huss began his officiating career while a college student and had to step away while coaching college football. But he has officiated high school basketball for almost 40 years in addition to six years at the college level. He has worked five different NCHSAA state championship basketball games and has called in five regionals and 30 sectional tournaments, earning the NCHSAA Golden Whistle Award for officiating excellence in 2012.
Huss was inducted into the Lenoir-Rhyne University Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.
Lindsey Linker
Lindsey Linker has become known as one of the top tennis coaches in the history of North Carolina.
A graduate of Myers Park in Charlotte and then the University of North Carolina, Linker began her high school coaching at Chapel Hill in 1981 and was there for 10 seasons. Coaching both men’s and women’s teams there, her teams posted a 294-39 mark, won two NCHSAA state dual team titles and had four individual state champs.
From 1998 through 2013, she guided the East Chapel Hill tennis programs and continued her amazing success, with 11 individual state champions and a whopping 14 state dual team titles to go with almost 600 victories. She was named conference coach of the year during her career an incredible 39 times.
Linker has been very active in community activities and fundraisers and was the NCHSAA Doris Howard Coach of the Year in 2010. She is a founding board member of the North Carolina High School Tennis Coaches Association.
Shelly Marsh
Shelly Marsh was an outstanding head coach in basketball at several different stops as well as a well-respected administrator.
Born in Chatham County, Marsh went to J.S. Waters High School and then graduated from North Carolina A&T in 1965. He was successful at every coaching stop, starting at W.H. Robinson High in Pitt County in the old North Carolina High School Athletic Conference, with a record of 101-52, and then from 1973 to ’84 at Greenville D.H. Conley, where his teams went 219-102. He also coached at Havelock (158-81) and then at West Johnston, his final coaching stop from 2004-08, with a 55-53 mark, to give him 533 career victories.
Marsh also has been an assistant principal, principal and most recently served as deputy superintendent in Johnston County.
He is a member of the Johnston County Hall of Fame and the North Carolina Athletic Directors Association Hall of Fame and received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine from North Carolina governor Mike Easley.
Dave Odom
Dave Odom had a stellar career as a collegiate basketball coach, after over a decade of success at the high school level.
A three-sport star at Goldsboro High School, Odom went on to Guilford College, where he was the school’s Athlete of the Year before graduating in 1965. From 1965 through ’76, Odom coached in the high school ranks, first at Goldsboro and then as head basketball coach at Durham.
Odom then moved to Wake Forest University as an assistant coach and wound up serving as head basketball coach at East Carolina, Wake Forest and South Carolina. His collegiate coaching mark as head coach was 409-274 and he guided teams to nine NCAA tournaments and six NIT events, including winning three NITs and a pair of ACC tournaments. All during that time, though, he remained supportive of efforts of the NCHSAA and even participated in several special events.
He has been inducted into many Halls of Fame, including Goldsboro High, Guilford College, Wake Forest, and the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, among others.
Cindi Simmons
Cindi Simmons compiled a brilliant record as a coach in two different sports at Sylva-Webster and then Smoky Mountain High School when Sylva-Webster and Cullowhee merged.
A graduate of Hayesville High and then Western Carolina University, Simmons was a star high school and college athlete. She captained the WCU women’s basketball team in 1981-82 and was seventh on the school’s all-time scoring list. She went on to coach volleyball 26 seasons and basketball for 30, winning three state titles in volleyball and the 2007 NCHSAA 2-A title in basketball.
Her career mark in basketball was a stellar 512-279, and she won 11 conference championships and almost 400 matches in volleyball.
She has earned a number of previous honors, including the NCHSAA’s prestigious Toby Webb Coach of the Year award in 2008. She was the first female president of the North Carolina Coaches Association, during the 2005-06 academic year, and joined the Western Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame in 2000.
Sam Story
Sam Story has firmly established a reputation as one of the state’s top high school football coaches.
Story is a graduate of Burlington’s Walter Williams High School, where he later guided some great football teams himself. He graduated from Elon in 1969.
Story enjoyed a 40-year career as a coach and teacher, including 29 as a head football coach. He began his high school coaching at the old Gibsonville High for a year and then went to Southern Alamance. He was athletic director and football coach at Southern Alamance from 1973 to ’77, where his teams posted a great mark of 37-7. After several years as an assistant at Duke, Story went back to Williams where the Bulldogs rolled up a record of 201-98, including winning two NCHSAA 3-A state championships. He also won six conference track and field championships at Williams as a coach in that sport.
He coached in both the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas and the North Carolina Coaches Association East-West all-star games, and has been president of the Alamance County Sports Council.
Ron Vincent
Ron Vincent has put together the most wins ever for a North Carolina high school coach in the sport of baseball.
Vincent, a native of Greenville, graduated from J.H. Rose High School in 1965 and then from East Carolina University in 1969. Then he embarked on his remarkable teaching and coaching career, all in Pitt County as well.
He coached for four years at Farmville Central and then came to Rose in 1973. Since that time he has built the Rampants into a perennial power, guiding his teams to an amazing record of 800-216, including a host of championships at various levels. Rose has won a total of six NCHSAA state baseball titles under Vincent, including crowns in 1975, 1997, ’99, 2003, ’04, and ’08.
Vincent is a member of St. James United Methodist Church in Greenville and has served on the Greenville Babe Ruth Board of Directors.
