Published: May 14, 2008 10:45 pm            

Reminiscing

Pocahontas plays final home game

BLUEFIELD, Va. — Today, a softball game will be played at Joe Hill Field in Pocahontas.

Yet, this isn’t just any game. Unless minds are changed, it will be last home game for a Pocahontas High School athletic team.

For Dr. David Kovach, it’s the end of what has always been a significant part of his life.

“I grew up there, I went to school there, my brother went there all of his life until he graduated and my mom and dad were on staff there,” said Kovach, a dentist in Bluefield for 37 years. “That school was basically my life as a child growing up until I graduated and I really hate to see it go.

“Not just for me and the memories, but for the people of Pocahontas as well.”

A 1961 graduate of Pocahontas, Kovach played both football and basketball for the Indians, although not as well as he would have liked.

“I didn’t do very well, I was not one of the great athletes,” said Kovach, whose short-lived football career ended with a broken collar bone and arm during a preseason drill. “Coach used to tell me I was the only white guy he had ever seen that had a vertical leap of one inch.”

Kovach’s father, Gaza, was the principal at Pocahontas for about 25 years, while his mother, Margaret, was a teacher there for two decades. Both are deceased, but Kovach knows how hurt both would be that the school’s doors will be closed after the final graduation class walks across the stage next month.

“Both of my parents are probably rolling in their graves right now,” said Kovach, an avid golfer, whose brother, Mike, graduated from Pocahontas in 1963.

“My dad was principal over there for about 25 years and he was principal while I was there,” said Kovach, who can still remember his father helping to paint lockers and wax floors at PHS during the summers months. “It was a really close-knit community, and the school was very much the center of life in Pocahontas.

“I really think it’s the kind of thing where the school is the center of that community. It is kind of like the heart of the town, I think by taking that school out of there, it’s really going to be a real blow to that community.”

Growing up just outside of Pocahontas near Bramwell, Kovach spent much of his childhood watching Indians’ athletics.

“I can remember going to all those games and how worked up the community and the parents and the kids got, and even the little guys in elementary school were just very avid fans at that time,” Kovach said. “I really enjoyed going to see football games and basketball games.

“Even when I was in college and I was home, I would go because they always had good teams and good kids.”

In recent years, the Pocahontas athletic program has struggled to put a winner on the field, court, diamond or track. Still, that hasn’t kept the Indians from striving to be the best.

“My lasting impression will be young people who really worked hard and who worked together, not to be world-beaters, but to be part of a team and part of a Pocahontas team,” Kovach said. “We had always had those aspirations and we worked hard to try and get there, but what I remember the most is the hard work.

“A lot of these kids would come to practice until dark and then go home and do chores until 10 o’clock at night. I guess it’s the dedication and hard work.”

Yet, Kovach remembers when the Indians were a tough team to beat. For instance, in the fifties, Pocahontas fans had plenty of cheer about.

“We had a football team back in the ‘50s, we went 9-1, the only game we lost was to Richlands,” Kovach said. “They had some really good players, people like Ted Clark, Bob Dixon, that was a really great football team.”

While the football glory has been fleeting, the basketball team has been the staple of Pocahontas athletes. Names like Mason Shell, Sonny Bishop and Bluefield resident Pete Danko. There have been many more, such as the Murphy brothers, the Prince brothers, Van Gentry, Gary Bradner, Bill Hendricks and Jerry Gravely.

There was also basketball coach, ‘Rookie’ Dickenson, who would later serve as athletic director and golf coach at the University of Houston.

“We had some real good basketball teams over there,” Kovach said. “Some of the names that would be familiar to people around here are the Murphy brothers, there were four or five of them and they were all really good basketball players.”

When Kovach attended the current Pocahontas High School — which was built to replace the original facility that opened in 1908 — he played under Tom Lucas, as did all the athletic programs.

“Because of the size of the school, for years he coached every sport,” Kovach said. “Baseball, basketball and track until he retired.”

He can still remember his chance to play in front of the huge crowds that would pack the school’s gymnasium.

“I do remember on a couple of occasions being able to dress with the varsity basketball team and going on out on that floor and playing in the Pocahontas gym,” Kovach said. “It’s not that small, but they really did pack it. If you had a home game that place was packed.”

Perhaps the most memorable game under Lucas was a low-scoring Pocahontas victory over Montcalm.

“Pocahontas won 2-1 and they were averaging way up there at 80 or 90 points a game.” Kovach said. “Carmen Stauffer decided to play slowdown on them and it ended up backfiring on him, he lost 2-1.”

Another one of Pocahontas’ big sports moments came in 1972 when the Indians claimed the county basketball title, beating the bigger schools like Graham, Tazewell and Richlands.

“As the sports programs at Pocahontas decreased because of the size of the school we quit playing some of those bigger schools,” Kovach said. “I think ‘72 was the last year they played all the county high schools, whoever beat the other team the most won the county championship and they did it that year.”

Kovach, who attended Virginia Military Institute and spent two years in the Air Force, is just one of many successes from the class of ‘61, a contingent of less than 70 that includes a Ph.D., a dentist, several nurses, a few Masters recipients and a pair of financial officers now living in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

“As far as I know, nobody in my class ended up in prison or on welfare that I’m aware of so I’ve always said we got a pretty good education at Pocahontas,” Kovach said. “We got a lot of individual attention as well.”

It has rarely been easy for Pocahontas athletics. In fact, the football program ceased to exist for a time.

“We always had good athletes at Pocahontas, the kids always worked hard, they enjoyed sports,” Kovach said. “They quit playing football for a time while I was in high school because they just didn’t have enough interest.

“A lot of that had to with the fact that the kids that lived in Ebbs Valley and Bossevain, they worked cattle farms and big farms for their parents and they didn’t have time for sports.

“As time went on, they were able to get the programs going again. They’ve never been world-beaters since then, but they’ve always had interest and they’ve always had good kids down there.”

In recent years, Pocahontas had shown signs of reinvigorating its programs, breaking a long losing streak in football, while the basketball team finally won a pair of district games, and even a regional contest.

“Everybody knows that all the sports goes through cycles,” Kovach said. “You have up years and then you have down years and then you build back up and then you go back down again and I think Pocahontas was finally starting to build back up again and they got the death blow.”

Kovach is concerned that once the school is closed, the rich history of Pocahontas High School and its athletic programs will be lost forever.

“I think the history of that school and the history of the athletics will probably be lost in the next 10 or 15 years, you’re not going to hear much about it,” said Kovach, who still has his high school jacket and sweater.

“It will stay in the hearts and minds of the people over there, but that will be all.”

—Contact Brian Woodson

at bwoodson@bdtonline.com

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.