Baseball 9/25/2024 9:00:00 AM By Mike Ashley '83

A Tale of Two Highlanders

Let me tell you a story about some guys that love baseball. Especially Radford University baseball.

The first is Kevin Scott, the shortstop from Christiansburg, who played on the first RU varsity team in 1985. He's at the Highlander heart of this story.

Mike and Denny

The second is Radford University Athletics Hall of Famer Denny Van Pelt, a 1994 graduate who took it upon himself to honor Scott and the entire program' history at Homecoming when the new Kevin Scott Memorial Scholarship is presented prior to the baseball team's scrimmage scheduled for Oct. 5.

Scott's teammates from the 1985 inaugural Radford baseball team and freshly minted RU Hall of Famer Alex Gregory will also be recognized. (Gregory '09, goes into the Hall the night preceding.)

This is such a great Radford story, something worth sharing as we come home to celebrate Radford University and all the things that make it so special. Van Pelt, a Hall of Famer who has done so much donating, raising money and rallying his Highlanders to do the same, only heard about Scott a few months ago. And he heard about it from another former player, and well, a better storyteller than I. I'm putting him in this lineup now.

1B/OF/award-winning former Roanoke Times reporter/current freelancer Ralph Berrier Jr., has the backstory. It doesn't start in Radford, but the payoff is worth it in the hands of a writer as talented as Ralph:

Written May 16, 2024
On this day 40 years ago, May 16, 1984, Gerald Lyons made the greatest throw in the history of Carroll County High School baseball when he threw out the tying run for the final out of the game, ending a thrilling 2-1 win over Christiansburg in the New River District Tournament and sending us to the regional playoffs. ThePlay

Gerald made the throw from left field, as I stood in center, hollering "Home!!!" at the top of my lungs, as if he was thinking about throwing the ball anywhere else. The throw was a perfect one-hopper to home plate, where catcher Darrin Matthews secured it, blocked the plate and held on to the ball as the runner plowed into him. (Darrin's role in catching and holding on to the throw was as significant as the throw itself. It was a great play all around.)

When Darrin held up the ball in his glove and the umpire signaled "Out!" I ran to Gerald, picked him up and tossed him over my shoulder and started jumping up and down. Gerald wanted none of it.

"Put me down," he hollered. "I've got Skoal in my mouth!"

Gerald wasn't much for celebrations.

I grew up with Gerald Lyons, two Lambsburg boys who played sports together from pick-up basketball games to little league, through middle school, high school and Legion ball. We were pretty much inseparable. By the time we got to high school, we were already starting to travel our own paths, but we still rode to school together, either on the bus or in my family's 1980 Chevrolet Citation, and we always played baseball together.

That play and that game are still with me today, all these decades later. The great Tommy Bowman of the Galax Gazette snapped a picture of that conclusive collision at home and headlined it simply, "The Play."

But there's more to the story. What follows is sad. Sad and funny and tragic and strange and hopefully inspiring and uplifting, too.

You see, that Christiansburg baserunner being thrown out in this newspaper photo is Kevin Scott. And this is his story, too.

A few months after The Play, Kevin and I became teammates on the first Radford University varsity baseball team in 1985. We were both freshman walk-ons just like a lot of players on that team that got its heads kicked in as we faced life as an overmatched start-up in the world of NCAA Division I baseball. Because we were local boys, many of us Southwest Virginia guys on that squad sort of fell in together … me, Kevin, Steve Tickle from Dublin, Jeff Stevers from Giles County, Dale Shrader from Narrows, Bill Parks from Collinsville … small-town kids and country boys, playing ball and getting beat bad.

Kevin and I talked about that 1984 play … but not often. It was a highlight for me, but it must have been one of Kevin's lowest moments. His season and high school career ended with Gerald Lyons' rifle shot of a throw.

Kevin was a good ballplayer, a shortstop who had a terrific arm, but you never knew where the ball was gonna go when he threw it. Even so, just like Gerald Lyons making the best throw in Carroll County history, Kevin authored the greatest throw in Radford history (at least the best I ever saw).

We were playing at UNC Asheville in one of our 28 road games that season (we played just two "home" games … because we had no field!) and, of course, we lost. The worst part wasn't the defeat, just another in a season of losses, but the heckling we endured from a group of obnoxious Asheville fans, probably students. I don't remember if there were two or three or how many of them, but they were just about the only people in the ballpark that day, and they sat behind our dugout and one main heckler rode us mercilessly. Loud, profane, nasty. Look, I don't know what happened in this dude's life that made going to the old ballyard to mock the worst baseball team in America his best option for a fun day, but there we were.

Midway through the game, between innings, the infielders were making practice throws when Kevin uncorked one from shortstop that sailed over our dugout and hit Mr. Heckler Guy right in the middle of his chest. Like he had a bull's eye on his sternum. He never saw it coming. The dude went bananas and was ready to come on to the field and fight somebody, but the homeplate umpire had heard enough from him and he tossed him and his fellow hecklers out of the park. I knew the throw was an accident, because, like I said, Kevin often never knew where his throws were going to land, so the odds of him hitting somebody in the bleachers on purpose seemed unlikely.

Then, when Kevin came back to the dugout after the inning was over, I saw a few of our players handing him wads of cash from their $11 meal money per diem. They had offered Kevin money if he hit that dude with a throw and Kevin had done it! He really had hit that heckler on purpose! And he made bank! It was the greatest throw he ever made!

We played out the string that season, and I decided not to play the following year. Kevin returned and was slated to be starting shortstop again. Then the unthinkable happened.
Kevin was killed on Feb. 23, 1986, when he was struck by a vehicle as he made a left turn off US 11 toward the driveway of his family's farm. The other driver was fleeing police, heading east from Radford, and did not have his headlights on during a dark winter's night. Kevin most likely died instantly. He was 19 years old.

Gerald Lyons and Kevin Scott are inextricably linked forever in my memory. I can't think of Gerald's mighty throw without thinking about Kevin. I haven't seen Gerald in years, and I wonder what Kevin would have become — to me, they are forever boys, frozen in time by The Play.

There's one more guy linked to this play. The person who gave me the news the morning after Kevin died was my roommate, Darrin Matthews, my Carroll County teammate who had come to Radford to play ball, the same Darrin Matthews who held on to the ball and tagged out Kevin Scott to save our season in 1984. That's him and Kevin pictured in the newspaper.

Isn't life weird? Weird and sad and wonderful and funny and beautiful and strange all at the same time.

Lately, the good folks at Radford have been pitching the idea of a reunion of that first baseball team, as the 40^th anniversary of that inaugural season approaches. It's kind of crazy to think that people would be interested in getting that team back together. We won only four games ("How'd we ever win four?" Steve Tickle once famously said.) We lost a game 38-0. Fellow classmates thought we were a joke. ("What do the Radford baseball team and Michael Jackson have in common? They both wear one glove for no reason!" Boy, does that sound dated.) For so many years, it seemed that we didn't matter. Who cares about a team of losers?

But now here we are 40 years later and it's going to happen, we're going to have a reunion. And it's because what we did mattered. Within five years of our first season, Radford baseball had its first winning record, they beat Virginia Tech in 1989 and had a player named Phil Leftwich who was drafted and made it to the Major Leagues. Over the years, the team has won Big South Conference championships, played in NCAA Tournaments and produced several big-leaguers and guys who played in the minors.

None of that happens without a group of knuckleheads climbing in the backs of vans and station wagons and traveling throughout the South taking terrible shellackings so that one day better players would have the chance to excel.

That's what I'd tell Kevin. What we did mattered, buddy.

Only recently have I learned that a scholarship was established in Kevin's memory in the 1980s. I am embarrassed that I didn't know the scholarship existed. I am told no one has donated to it since 1989. When we started talking about a reunion and discovered Kevin's scholarship, Radford Hall of Fame baseball player Denny Van Pelt took the lead on making people aware of its existence. He plans to get it funded for at least five years, at least $3,000 per year. Even though he's been gone for so long, Kevin Scott still matters.

Everybody who has played sports knows there's nothing like your teammates. You never forget them. I can still see Gerald Lyons fielding that base hit on one hop and bending his body to make the perfect throw. I see the cloud of dust at home plate and Darrin holding up the ball. I remember the bedlam and celebration that followed.

It was the best play I ever saw.

...

Back to me in the batting order of baseball-loving Highlanders. And thanks, Ralph for writing most of my column.

DVP, RU fund-raising MVP Carter Turner, and all-in alumni baseball coach Alex Guerra will present a scholarship over $4000 at homecoming to a member of the team, which is made up of mostly recruited walk-ons and partial scholarships, not uncommon in mid-major baseball.

A dedicated group of baseball alumni raised most of the money and have pledged more for future years, too. You'll hear this at every athletic program in the country now, but our colleges have never needed us more. The evolving nature of college athletics demand more of us step to the plate if we love our college and our teams.

Van Pelt certainly does. He will be honored at Homecoming, too, at the Friday Alumni luncheon for all he has done and is doing. This is just one part of his dugout full of contributions. He is again a power hitter in our lineup.

I kid Denny because he was a transfer from Kansas where he played football. I told him his Hall of Fame induction was because he was the greatest Linebacker/First baseman in school history. In truth, he was also one of the most gifted athletes I ever saw at RU.

DVP is the only guy in the Top Ten on both the school's career home run and stolen base lists. He was a 6-3, 220-pound dynamo who hit for average (.330 career) and you certainly didn't want to see him barreling at you on the basepaths.

You did want him as a teammate, though. One of the most fun-loving athletes on my watch in RU sports PR, I remember Denny off the field because he would come by my office just to shoot the (let's say) breeze with myself and other staff.

I remember often giving him rides over the Dedmon Center Bridge on his way walking to practice. He always made me laugh, even now as I admit an NCAA violation on student-athlete benefits. In fairness, I gave any student I knew rides when I was making that trek. In the rain, even folks I didn't know, qualified.

I must admit I didn't see post-grad Denny coming. After a brief career in the California/Los Angeles Angels organization, a hip injury forced him to retire and he has been teaching high school and coaching in New Jersey ever since, including the last 11 years also serving as Director of Player Development at Baseball U, an academy that helps kids land college scholarships.

There aren't many alumni as active as Denny. He's coming to Homecoming early to help at Radford Gives Back, an annual food collection program that aims to feed underprivileged kids throughout the region. Denny has also made baseball the perennial team-to-beat in the RAD48 fund-raising campaign. He was the impetus behind honoring the 40^th anniversary team and when he heard about Kevin Scott, he literally upped the ante.

"I wanted to help with a scholarship for baseball and the timing seemed perfect with the anniversary of the 1985 team," said Van Pelt. "Who we are goes back to '85, and Kevin was part of laying the tracks for what we've become."

A big part, according to Greig Denny, the second RU baseball coach who just happens to be going into the Hall of Fame this year, too, mostly for his long career as an administrator who helped key the move to Division I, and for, well, being such a great leader, mentor and friend to those in the program.

"Kevin was beloved by his teammates," said Greig Denny. "He quietly went about his work, not a loud guy, but a leader by example, always on an even keel and just did the things that needed to be done on his own."

The hard times that 1985 team endured – all road games; not even a homefield for practice; one player on any kind of scholarship; hand-me-down Philadelphia Phillies uniforms, and one grad assistant as their coach – are now something those guys can smile about.

I remember the weather was so bad late that winter and early spring that we finally gave up and took the team photo in the Dedmon Center in front of the wooden bleachers. It was a foreshadowing.

I look forward to seeing these guys again. Heck, I didn't see a lot of them that first year with no home games. This team produced some real storytellers with two acclaimed authors, Berrier and pitcher Ron Peterson Jr., who has become a best-selling true crime writer.

Listen to them and you will hear tales of incredible perseverance and dedication through unbelievable adversity. These guys came out the other side and they've earned a piece of the program as it is today with a beautiful home field, a proven track record and rebuilding toward a return to postseason play under a dynamic, young coach.

It's an uphill battle in the current college landscape, but alumni and friends like Van Pelt are evening the playing field and gushing with pride as they do so.

In case you're interested in helping, too, contact Associate Director for University Advancement Jon Zeitz (540-831-5516). Join us that are so glad to be plaid.

Mike Ashley '83 was a national award-winning writer and columnist ('Sidelines') for the Radford University student newspaper The Tartan. He has been a professional sports journalist since 1983, primarily covering college athletics in the mid-Atlantic region, after 17 years at Radford University (not all as an undergrad). And he will be at Homecoming for the baseball festivities, and later that Saturday for the naming of Cupp Stadium soccer field for Tommy Lillard '79. Come by for high fives all over the Dedmon Center complex and, hopefully, at a Moffett Field visit. Finally, congratulations to soccer star Sean Peay '91, who is also receiving alumni recognition for his work on behalf of the entire University.

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