Ferrum College alumnus and former professional baseball pitcher Billy Wagner was inducted to the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in a weekend celebration over November 1-2, 2019. The ceremony was held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Wagner credits much of his success to Ferrum College: “Going to Ferrum was the greatest thing that ever happened in my life,” Wagner said in an article that appeared in the October 30 edition of The Roanoke Times.
Wagner spent three years at Ferrum College until he was recruited by Houston in the 1993 Major League Baseball draft. His professional career includes stints with the Houston Astros (1995-2003); Philadelphia Phillies (2004-2005); New York Mets (2006-2009); Boston Red Sox (2009); and Atlanta Braves (2010). Wagner now coaches high school baseball at The Miller School in Albemarle County.
“There is absolutely no way somebody that hasn’t been to Ferrum could understand the beauty of Ferrum and what it entails,” Wagner concluded during the interview.
Learn more about Wagner’s athletic achievements here.
Read more about Wagner in this Roanoke Times article.
Talum Smith ’20 (center) stands with President David Johns and Head Women’s Wrestling Coach Breonnah Neal at the October 30 Wrestle Like A Girl Gala.
Ferrum College senior and member of the women’s wrestling team Talum Smith was honored Wednesday, October 30, 2019, during the Wrestle Like A Girl Fourth Annual Gala. The gala was held in Washington, D.C. at the National Museum for Women in the Arts.
Out of 427 nominated student wrestlers, Smith was chosen to receive the Afsoon Roshanzamir Johnston Courage Award presented by Tiffany and Co. The award was created in 2016 by the Wrestle Like A Girl Foundation to honor Afsoon Roshanzamir Johnston, who moved from Iran to the U.S. and became the first woman in America’s history to win a wrestling medal for the U.S. at the 1989 World Championships. The Afsoon Roshanzamir Johnston Courage Award honors athletes who have to use immense personal courage to participate or compete in sports, even when participating could put them at great risk.
“I feel deeply humbled and honored to receive this award. It feels amazing to know that I can inspire other people, especially young girls, and be a great role model to them,” said Smith. “I want to thank Wrestle Like A Girl for hosting this event and everything that they are doing to empower and invest in women.”
“Her award is fitting,” explained Ferrum College President David Johns. “Talum is one of the most courageous young women I know, in all aspects of life.”
“She is hardworking, dedicated, and a great leader who always has a smile on her face and produces positive energy,” said Ferrum College head women’s wrestling coach Breonnah Neal. “Talum is well-deserving of this award because of all of the obstacles she has faced.”
A criminal justice major hailing from Washington, D.C., Smith did not initially plan on pursuing higher education due to the expense and having to move away from her siblings. In spite of the odds, she made her way to Ferrum College and began working a full-time job to pay for school.
In her sophomore year at the College, she came out for the women’s wrestling team, showing up at every practice that didn’t interfere with her full-time job. Also in her sophomore year, at age 19, Smith was diagnosed with leukemia.
“I was blindsided by the news,” said then head women’s wrestling coach Jessica Medina. “As she told me this, she had a smile on her face. She didn’t want anyone to pity her or worry.”
Throughout treatment, Smith continued to work and go to class with an oxygen tank in tow. She took summer classes to raise her GPA. She was determined to wrestle for Ferrum College. In fall 2018, Smith received the happy news that the disease was in remission.
In January 2019, with her doctor’s permission, Smith competed in the Tornado Open. “She wrestled her heart out that day, inspiring our entire team,” said Medina. “Because she wanted to compete on her college team, she pushed herself in the classroom to have the opportunity.”
“Talum embodies the spirit of Ferrum College–determined, focused, and courageous,” said Johns, with pride. “She is an inspiration to us all.”
Read more about Afsoon Roshanzamir Johnston here, and about the Afsoon Roshanzamir Johnston Courage Award here.
Learn more about Wrestle Like A Girl here.
Learn more about Ferrum College’s women’s wrestling here.
Ferrum College is making final preparations to host the 2019 NCAA Division III Wrestling National Championships, to be held Friday and Saturday, March 8-9, at The Berglund Center in Roanoke, Virginia.
This year marks the first time that the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships have been contested in the Commonwealth of Virginia. One previous NCAA Wrestling Tournament has been held in Virginia, back in 1936 when Washington and Lee University hosted the event as an all-divisions tournament. This is the first time Ferrum College has hosted a national championship in any sport.
Ferrum Coach Nate Yetzer saw three of his wrestlers qualify for this year’s NCAA Tournament with top-three finishes at the Southeast Regional in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Freshman Levi Englman won the 133-pound weight class, junior Mario Vasquez placed second at 141 pounds and senior Blake Rosenbaum was the 174-pound champion. All three will be making their first NCAA appearances.
“Our entire group of guys wrestled so well at the NCAA Southeast Regionals last weekend at Lycomong College, and I couldn’t be more proud of them,” said Head Coach Nate Yetzer. “Levi, Mario and Blake all punched tickets to the NCAA Tournament with semifinal wins, and we had freshman 125-pounder Jalen White come close with a fourth-place finish. We’re looking forward to hosting the championships this close to campus and plan to make it a quality experience for the entire field of competitors. Fans will be treated to a show, NCAA Division III wrestling is so competitive today and we’ll see some exciting action.”
The NCAA Tournament begins Friday morning at 11:00 a.m. with Session I. Session II begins at 6:00 p.m. Friday, and will be preceded by the opening ceremonies at 4:45 p.m. Session III is set to begin at 10 a.m. Saturday morning. Saturday evening, the Parade of All-Americans begins at 6:15 p.m. and will be followed immediately at 7:00 p.m. by the championship finals. Complete Schedule
Visit Ferrum’s championship host site above for information of tickets, schedule and media credentials. Ticket prices are as follows:
A total of 180 wrestlers from six regionals across the country qualified for the NCAA Tournament. In order to qualify, wrestlers must place in the top three at one of six regionals. NCAA Tournament Qualifiers Announcement
The Service for Grateful Memory for Hank Norton will be held in Vaughn Chapel on the Ferrum College campus at 2 PM on Saturday, February 2, 2019. The memorial service may be watched live online here. The service will then be archived and may be viewed at a later date by following this link and choosing the “On Demand” tab.
January 17, 2019: On Wednesday, January 16, Ferrum College bid farewell to a Panther legend. Former football coach and director of athletics Hank Norton passed away at the age of 91.
“Ferrum College mourns the passing of Coach Norton, whose influence on our community and on generations of young athletes was monumental,” said Ferrum College President David Johns. “I am grateful for the opportunity to have watched Panther football this past season with Hank and to hear his many stories of games and players through the years. We send our heartfelt condolences to Coach Norton’s family.”
Ferrum Junior College President, Dr. Ralph Arthur, hired Wilbert Henry Norton, Jr. in the spring of 1960 as the College’s fourth head football coach. Within his first few seasons at the helm of the program, Norton transformed Ferrum into one of the top teams in the country. The Panthers joined the National Junior College Athletic Association in 1961, and Norton took the team to the 1965 and 1966 Shrine Bowl. Norton’s Panthers won NJCAA national titles in 1968, 1974, and 1977.
Norton led Ferrum College into NCAA Division III athletics by the 1985-86 school year and became a member of the Dixie Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, which is now the USA South. Panther football was immediately successful, with post-season playoff runs in 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990. Under Norton’s direction, the team also won NCAA South Region titles in 1988 and 1989.
Ferrum College enjoyed Norton’s strengths as head football coach for 34 seasons until his retirement in 1993. More than 50 of his former players went on to play professional football, including National Football League All-Pro running back Chris Warren. Billy Wagner and Eric Owens, both baseball players at the College during Norton’s coaching days, also went on to play major league baseball. In all, Norton coached 46 All-Americans while at Ferrum College. His teams won 15 NJCAA Region X titles and six Coastal Conference crowns.
During his career, Norton was named Coach of the Year three times by the NJCAA in 1965, 1968, and 1974. In 1979, Norton’s name appeared on the Virginia Sports Wall of Fame. He is also a member of the Ferrum College Alumni Sports Hall of Fame, the University of Lynchburg Sports Hall of Fame, the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, and the National Junior College Athletic Association Football Hall of Fame.
Norton is a household name at Ferrum College and in the Ferrum area. The section of Virginia State Route 40 that stretches from Rocky Mount to the Ferrum, approximately 10 miles, is named in his honor. Norton was a dedicated leader, a fly-fisherman, and a genuinely caring coach who was tough but believed in his athletes.
“Coach Norton meant so much to so many people,” explained Ferrum College’s Director of Athletics Abe Naff, who was hired by Norton in 1981 as the assistant football and baseball coach. “It’s hard to put into words the impact Coach Norton has had on Ferrum College, the Panther athletic program, and Franklin County, Virginia.”
Norton attended Marshall University and Concord College. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Lynchburg College in 1951 and then served in the Army as a physical recondition instructor in medical field school, where he also played on the Army Black Knights football team from 1951-52. Prior to his arrival at Ferrum College, Norton served as football, basketball, and track coach at Powhatan High School from 1954-59, where he also taught history and science. Norton obtained his master’s degree in education from the University of Virginia in 1956.
Norton is survived by his three adult children, Patty and her husband David Gunter, Will and his wife Jodie, Jack and his wife Kristi, 10 grandchildren and one great grandchild.
A memorial service will be held for Norton at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 2, in Vaughn Chapel on the Ferrum College campus in Ferrum, Va.
Ferrum College junior Brian Mann from Pearisburg, VA, has been named to both the 2018 American Football Coaches Association Division III All-American Team, and the 2018 Google Cloud Academic All-American NCAA Division III Football Team. He is the College’s first ever student-athlete to earn academic and athletic All-American recognition.
Mann, who is majoring in business administration and financial management, was named to the All-Conference first team by the Old Dominion Athletic Conference this season, and is one of only two ODAC players named to the 2018 AFCA All-American team. Mann earned a place on the Academic All-District V first team in November, which made him eligible for Academic All-American. He ranks as Ferrum College’s seventh Academic All-American and the second in Panther football. Currently, Mann holds 14 school records, received an ODAC nod in 2018, and was USA South Offensive Rookie of the Year and Offensive Player of the Year in 2016 and 2017.
Read more about Brian Mann’s athletic and academic achievements here and here.
Ferrum College’s Gary Holden was recently featured in the College Sports Information Directors of America 360 magazine for his expansive knowledge in collegiate athletics.
Currently serving the College as sports information director and assistant athletic director for compliance, Holden’s career began in the mid-1980’s as an assistant wrestling coach at Plymouth State University, and grew to include head wrestling coach and residence hall director at the university. Holden joined Ferrum College as sports information director in 1991. Except for a small hiatus as SID to Lynchburg College from 1997-1998, Holden has called Ferrum College his home for almost 30 years. While at Ferrum, he has seen and done just about everything in collegiate athletics, including serving as sports information director, assistant athletic director, compliance director, head men’s tennis coach, interim head women’s tennis coach, and commissioner to the Atlantic Central Football Conference.
“Life as an SID can be a blur sometimes,” Holden remarked. “Add in compliance work and you jump from one thing to the next to keep up. It’s crazy, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
A native of Nashua, New Hampshire, Holden and his wife Leslie reside in Ferrum, and are the parents of two grown sons Taylor and Drew. He is the author of the book Black & Gold, A History of Athletics at Ferrum College, which he wrote and self-published in 2014. Holden was inducted into Plymouth State’s Sports Hall of Fame in October 2015.
Read more about Holden’s career and accomplishments in Will Roleson’s article in CoSIDA 360 here.
Samuel Richmond Webb
February 2, 1926 to December 1, 2018
On Saturday, December 1, the Ferrum College community bid farewell to the coach who started the institution’s first competitive football program.
Samuel “Sam” Webb, hailing from Bluefield, VA, was born on February 12, 1926. He graduated from Concord College in 1951 and arrived at Ferrum College in 1955 as the head coach of the intramural six-man football team. Webb began the competitive football program by making recruiting calls from then-Ferrum College President Ralph Arthur’s office. The College also received generous donations of football equipment from University of Richmond; Virginia Tech; Virginia Military Institute; and Washington and Lee University; and Panther football was born.
During his time at Ferrum College, Webb also served as head basketball coach, head baseball coach, and athletic director. Health concerns forced him to resign after the spring of 1957 and he began a career in masonry and sales at Riverton Corporation in Salem, VA. Tom Berry, a 1957 Ferrum College alumnus, described Webb as “a mentor, friend and father figure to us all. He wore so many hats: football coach, basketball coach, baseball coach and athletic director. I don’t know how he did it all. It’s hard to describe the impact he’s had on my life. He was such a good person.”
Gary Holden, Ferrum College’s sports information director, along with President David Johns, visited Webb in Salem two days before he passed. “I got to know Sam fairly well a couple of years back when I was writing a book,” remarked Holden. “He was so humble and cared about others. I was able to talk with him privately a couple minutes before we left. I needed to say some things to him and I’m glad I did.”
Webb is survived by his son, Charlton Webb of Knoxville, TN, and his daughter and son-in-law, Whitney Webb Maddox and Rob Maddox, of Vinton, VA.
Read more about Coach Webb on Ferrum College’s athletics page here: https://www.ferrumpanthers.com/general/2018-19/releases/20181201gi3cb2 and at The Roanoke Times here: https://www.roanoke.com/sports/colleges/founding-father-of-ferrum-football-passes-away/article_a367d610-5fc4-5ad6-b4f6-19d104d89eee.html.
Ferrum College has accepted an offer to join the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. The Panthers will become the newest member of one of the nation’s largest NCAA Division III conferences.
Ferrum has been a member of the USA South Athletic Conference since the fall of 1988. The Panthers will leave the USA South at the end of the 2017-18 academic year, their 30th overall and final year, and will begin competition in the ODAC in Fall 2018. Ferrum has competed as an ODAC associate member in men’s and women’s swimming the past two years.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for Ferrum and our student-athletes,” said Interim President Dr. Jennifer L. Braaten. “We have aspired to be a part of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference for years and feel our commitment to academics and athletics make us a perfect fit for the league.”
Beginning in the fall of 2018, Ferrum will become the 15th full-time member in the ODAC. Ferrum sponsors 21 varsity sports, 15 of which compete in the USA South, and one club level program. The field hockey team has competed in the Southern Athletic Association, the men’s lacrosse team has competed in the Southeast Intercollegiate Lacrosse Championship, and the men’s wrestling team has competed in the Southeast Wrestling Conference. Ferrum’s women’s wrestling program is the lone varsity program with no league affiliation.
Ferrum has been highly competitive in a number of athletic programs, sending teams or individuals in four sports to NCAA postseason competition in recent years. The women’s basketball program participated in three straight NCAA Tournaments from 2012 through 2014, hosting first- and second-round games in 2014. The softball team earned NCAA playoff berths in 2012 and 2016. Ferrum sent a wrestler to the NCAA Tournament in 2014, two in 2016 and three in 2017. The Panther mat men won the NCAA Div. III Wrestling East Regional in 2017, had one All-American in each of the past two years and had a wrestler close out the year as national runner-up. Ferrum also sent a golfer to the NCAA Tournament in 2017. Ferrum’s baseball team shared USA South regular season crowns in 2014 and 2016.
Ferrum has been well-represented on the USA South Academic All-Conference team, posting its highest number last summer with 121 honorees. A number of student-athletes have earned Academic All-District honors in recent years, three of which have been named Academic All-America in 2012, 2015 and 2016.
“Membership in the ODAC has been at the forefront for years,” said Director of Athletics Abe Naff. “We are pleased to be offered this great opportunity and look forward to this partnership with the other 14 institutions.”
Founded in 1913 and related to the United Methodist Church, Ferrum is a four-year, private, co-educational, Liberal Arts College related to the United Methodist Church. The College offers nationally recognized bachelor’s degree programs ranging from business and environmental science to teacher education and criminal justice.
Ferrum Panthers Men’s Basketball program cover from the 1994-95 season includes (seated, L-R) Albert Hobbs, John Breedlove, and Kevin Keatts; and (standing, L-R) Louis Westbrook, Paul Rivera, and Chuck Ellis
James Johnson ’93
Former Ferrum Panthers teammates Kevin Keatts ’95 and James Johnson ’93 recently reunited at North Carolina State after Keatts, who was named the new NC State men’s basketball coach in March, hired Johnson to be one of his assistants. Keatts and Johnson were part of the only Ferrum College men’s basketball team to ever advance to the NCAA Division III tournament (1992). The long-time friends each played for and coached under Bill Pullen, head coach for the Panthers from 1985-96. Prior to their coming together at NC State, Keatts was head coach for UNC Wilmington and Johnson was the director of men’s basketball operations at Miami.
Read more in Mark Berman’s article in The Roanoke Times here.
Ferrum Panthers Men’s Basketball During Johnson & Keatts Years
