George Whitfield receives Clyde King Excellence in Coaching Award

By Justin Hayes
Published in Sports on January 12, 2016 1:48 PM

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jhayes@newsargus.com

WILSON -- George Whitfield is still coaching.

Not in the literal sense, because converted gym floors are not to be confused with regulation base pads, wilted rosin bags or summer floodlights glaring upon a rattling aluminum fence in straightaway center.

Whitfield's familiar smile, his firm and dependable handshake and his arm draped over a shoulder worn smooth like the barrel of a Roy Hobbs bat, willing to standing against all tests.

For seven decades, Whitifeld has been part of the game he's always loved and he received the highest honor -- the Clyde King Excellence in Coaching Award -- during the annual Wilson County Hot Stove League held Monday evening.

Whitfield doesn't do moneyball, nor anything of the new age empirical sort. He does fundamentals, over and over and over, thank you kindly, until they are a working set of functional habits.

In his words, "It's (today's game) just different than it was when I grew up in the fifties... simple is sometimes better."

His annual camp, held each January, is steeped in the tried and true development of solid skills. Getting from point A to point B is an art form in baseball, and while his students may not leave his stay with a treatise of their physical measurables, they exit his care with something much more important.

A lifelong friend.

Whitfield echoes the practices of his mentor -- whom he met by chance almost 60 years ago.

"I came to Goldsboro in the fall of 1959, and my first three years were at a junior high school," he recalled, "and during sixth period one day, this girl came to my desk to speak with me ..."

It was that conversation that would provide the young coach with newfound direction. The student, now Princie Evans (also his presenter Monday evening), asked Whitfield if he would like her father to conduct workouts with his baseball team.

Whitfield smiles fondly at the memory.

"Well, who's your Dad?" he asked.

The remainder, of course, is history.

King was an iconic fixture in eastern North Carolina baseball who spent the majority of his playing career with the Brooklyn Dodgers and his gloaming as the right hand to mercurial Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

Their first meeting -- at 3:30 p.m. on a dusty municipal ball field in Goldsboro -- would be the first of many conversations and planning sessions the duo would have about the development of the game they cherished.

Between them existed no secret formula or shortcut to finding professional success; just honest dialogue that would wind up spanning half a century in ball parks from Kinston to the Bronx, NY.

The overriding lesson?

"Always give 100%," Whitfield said, "Any time you do anything. All the boys remembered him very vividly ... He was such a wonderful role model. They (his players) all said he taught them more about life than baseball."

But seasons, as they are want to do, changed for both men. Armed with wisdom beyond his years, Whitfield left for greener pastures that included stops at Hamlet High School, Richmond Senior, Pitt Community College and East Carolina University.

Whitfield won nearly 1,300 games and is enshrined in 10 Halls of Fame.

Microphone in hand, the old ball coach's voice cracked briefly into a soft, trembling echo. Though his remarks drew to a close, he still had much to say.

There was credit to be properly shared -- another teaching moment -- and he rightly knew it.

"There's nobody in the world I have admired more than Clyde King," he said, "so to receive an award tonight in his honor ... I am extremely grateful."