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NC Sports Hall of Fame to Induct Wake Forest AD

Gene Hooks is one of seven being inducted into the Hall this year.

April 21, 1999

RALEIGH, N.C.- The North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in Raleigh will take on a gold and black look on May 19. Former Wake Forest Director of Athletics Gene Hooks is one of seven sports heroes from North Carolina being inducted into the Hall this year. The late Vic Sorrell, who had an outstanding college pitching career with the Deacons, will also be honored during the ceremonies at the Hilton North Raleigh.

Tickets for the 6:30 p.m. social hour and banquet are available to the public for $45 each. Checks should be made payable to the NC Sports Hall of Fame, PO Box 33035, Raleigh, NC 27636.

A golf tournament will be held on May 20 as part of the induction ceremonies in Raleigh. Entries in the superball event that has a 10:00 a.m. shotgun start at Prestonwood Country Club are $50 each.

In addition to Hooks and Sorrell, the 1999 inductees include Sam Moir, the legendary basketball coach at Catawba College; Kathy McMillan, a silver medalist at the Montreal Olympic in 1976; Jim Ritcher, a football All-America at NC State University and a member of four Buffalo Bills NFL Superbowl teams; Ed Sutton, a three-sport star at UNC and halfback with the Washington Redskins; and Harry Williamson, the first North Carolina resident to make an Olympic team (1936).

DR. G. EUGENE (GENE) HOOKS

Few individuals have been as instrumental in shaping the past and future of Wake Forest University athletics as Dr. Gene Hooks, the Demon Deacon director of athletics from 1964 until 1992. During those 28 years, he became recognized as one of the nation's most knowledgeable and progressive administrators of intercollegiate athletics.

A Wake Forester in the truest sense. Hooks attended the College in its original home of Wake Forest, N.C., following an outstanding career as a three-sport high school athlete at Rocky Mount and a year of service in the Navy. He gained All-America honors as a third baseman in both 1949 and 1950 with the Deacons and helped that program to the runner-up spot to Texas in the 1949 NCAA baseball championships.

Following graduation, he signed with the Chicago Cubs organization and played pro ball for four years before deciding to call it quits in order to work for his doctorate in physical education. He obtained his masters degree from the University of North Carolina in 1952, and served as an instructor in physical education at N.C. State. Later, he received his doctorate in education and physical education from George Peabody College.

Hooks returned to Wake Forest in 1956 as a physical education instructor and baseball coach, a position he held for three years before returning to the classroom fulltime.

In 1964 he was called upon to take over as Director of Athletics and soon built a reputation as an innovator in promotions. During his administration, the athletic department revenues increased more than 10-fold. Another key development under his leadership was the construction of outstanding facilities that now provide Wake Forest student-athletes with sme of the finest in practice and competition sites in the country. The Deacons won three national championships in men's golf and captured a total of 21 ACC titles during his time as AD.

In 1988 the new on-campus baseball facility, Gene Hooks Stadium, was named in his honor. He also is a past recipient of the WFU Medallion of Merit, the highest award presented by the university, for his distinguished service.

An active member of numerous ACC and NCAA committees during his tenure, Hooks has remained closely involved with intercollegiate athletics since his retirement in the summer of 1992. He became the first executive director of the Division 1-A Athletic Directors Association and served in that capacity until 1997. During his tenure he led the development of the CHAMPS/Life Skills Program and started the Programs of Excellence to honor those schools which have achieved excellence in the CHAMPS/Life Skills arena. He was also one of the founders of the highly successful Great Eight Basketball Festival.

He and his wife, Jean, also a former Wake Forest student, currently reside in Lake Wylie, S.C. They have three sons and two grandchildren.

VIC SORRELL

A comment by Vic Sorrell, Jr. on his father's election to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame aptly sums up the nature of the former Detroit Tiger righthander.

"It's a tremendous thrill for me," Vic, Jr. said, "but dad wouldn't think he deserved this honor."

One seldom will find a more modest fellow than the late Vic Sorrell, Sr., who pitched 10 years for the Tigers and coached N.C. State baseball for 21 years after earning a giant's reputation as a pitcher for Cary and Clayton high schools and for Wake Forest College.

Vic, Jr., presently a golf pro in Bluefield, West Virginia, played shortstop under his dad from 1963-65.

Sorrell first gained prominence at Cary High, then pitched Clayton to a state title as a junior. Back at Cary as a senior, he once struck out 21 Raleigh High batters in one game.

At Wake Forest, young Sorrell pitched for both the freshman and varsity teams his first year. Then he helped the Deacons to Big Five championships the next two years. In winning his last eight games as a junior he gave up only three runs.

"Dad was declared ineligible for his senior year because he had played for a coal mining company in Bluefield in the summer and was put on the payroll," Vic, Jr. explained.

Sorrell, who had signed with the Tigers as a Wake freshman, had a brilliant professional start, winning eight straight games for the Toronto club of the International League in 1926 and following that with a 14-8 record the next year.

As a Detroit rookie in 1928, Vic recorded a controversial strikeout of Ty Cobb, then finishing his career with Philadelphia. "He fouled off two pitches and then ducked away from a curve, which caught the corner," the pitcher once recalled. "Cobb was furious-must have argued for 10 minutes."

With the Tigers from 1928 to 1937, he compiled a 92-101 record, mostly with second division teams. But the addition of pitchers Schoolboy Rowe and Elden Auker and first-baseman Hank Greenberg in 1933 and then catcher Mickey Cochrane and outfielder Goose Goslin in 1934 enabled the team to beat out the Yankees for pennants in '34 and '35.

Sorrell failed to get into either World Series, a 7-game defeat by St. Louis and a 6-game victory over the Chicago Cubs. "Vic was a spot pitcher then," recalled Ed Wyatt of Raleigh, who as a boy followed the career of Sorrell, a Raleigh neighbor, on a daily basis. "But he beat Lefty Gomez and the Yankees 3-1 in a key game in 1935. He won only four games that year, but three were against the Yankees."

After his playing days, Sorrell managed 2 years in the minors, worked in the Wilmington shipyards during the war, and was named head coach at NC State in 1946.

His teams played only 20 to 25 games a year and he had modest scholarship help, but he compiled a 223-95-5 record for the Wolfpack. More than 50 former players were on hand to honor him on "Vic Sorrell Day" before his last home game in 1966.