Vaughan's Hall berth well-deserved

CARY — Earl Vaughan Jr. spent some 44 years keeping readers of The Fayetteville Observer well-informed of anything and everything related to high school sports.

He wrote without ceasing about athletes great and small; of some whose exploits would lead to professional careers, and — because of the nature of sports — others whose moments of heartbreak are forever etched in their souls.

On Saturday night, it was Vaughan’s turn to be in the spotlight as one of eight persons inducted into the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s Hall of Fame. The newest members were introduced, highlighted in videos and interviewed (or discussed, as was the case with two posthumous inductees) in alphabetical order. That means that Vaughan was the last one introduced to the crowd, and I’ll brashly say, as his co-worker for 40-plus years, that they unintentionally saved the best for last.

He wasn’t a coach or an adminstrator, as were the other seven, but someone who served as the professional historian for the athletic endeavors of players and coaches for well more than a generation. Vaughan retired from the Observer in September 2016.

“The only word I can think when I think of Earl is legend. He’s a legend in high school athletics in Fayetteville and Cumberland County,” said Doug Mead, a former Observer sports editor who attended Saturday night’s induction. “He cared so deeply about the athletes he covered, the coaches he worked with, and the people he worked with.”

In the video, another longtime member of our staff, Sammy Batten, referred to Vaughan as the Nick Saban of high school sports writers in this state.

“He hasn’t won any national championships, but he has championed so many athletes from this area and championed so many causes” for the NCHSAA, Batten said. He later described him as a proponent “for high school athletics not only in our area, but in this state. I don’t think you can measure that impact, really, it’s so strong.”

When Earl and I — both of us “preacher’s kids” — began working at the Observer as part-timers in the early ‘70s, to say that the tools of our craft were antiquated is accurate.

“Not a rock and a chisel,” Earl said Saturday night, “but a typewriter.” (By the time I joined Earl as one of sports editor Howard Ward’s part-timers, at least the business world had graduated from manual to electric models.)

As full-timers, our desks were often located next to each other. Our conversations spanned the gamut of topics. One of us could toss out a random quote from “Blazing Saddles” and the other provide the next line in the blink of an eye.

When a fan(atic) would call and accuse Earl of biased coverage, his blood would boil, and with good reason. He spent hours a week mulling the match-ups before deciding which games would be of greatest interest to our readers or their importance in the big picture, and to be falsely accused of favoritism is near the top of the list of insults to a journalist.

He showed amazing restraint at times when he could’ve ripped someone to ribbons in print. That’s just who he is. “I’m going to have to work with these people in the future, and I can’t risk burning that bridge,” he once said to me.

Because of his constant presence on the prep scene, everyone, it seemed, recognized Earl on sight.

“If Earl was at your game, it was a big game,” said Neil Buie, one of those who paid tribute to Vaughan in the video.

“It really helped on away games, ‘cause when you saw Earl, you felt at home,” said Melanie Garrett, a South View High great, a member of UNC Pembroke’s Hall of Fame as a softball and volleyball player and its former coach in both sports. “He was some nice, comfortable sunshine to us.”

“He just loved his job, he loved the kids, he loved the coaches,” said Patty Evers, the athletic director and longtime, highly successful girls’ basketball coach at East Bladen. “He just loves high school sports.”

We’re always called upon to cover a variety assignments as sports writers at the Observer. One day you’re at Opening Day for the local recreation department, the next day you might be at a Duke-Carolina basketball game with the ACC championship on the line.

That was true, too, for Earl, but his passion, and his dedication, for more than 40 years, was to high school athletes, coaches and fans.

“The thing I’m most appreciative of is all the athletes, all the coaches that let me be a part in their lives and to try to help tell their story in the best possible manner that I could,” Vaughan said.

There’s no question that Vaughan deserved the bit of immortality bestowed on him by the NCHSAA. It was a slam-dunk honor if there ever was one for a preps reporter.

Lumberton’s Brad Allen, who officiated high school games before making it to the NFL as a referee, said it best in the video. Of Vaughan’s selection for induction into the Hall, he said, “After further review, the ruling on the field is confirmed. Congratulations, Earl.”

Congratulations, indeed.

Sports editor Thomas Pope can be reached at tpope@fayobserver.com or 486-3520.

FAMED FOLKS

A list of NCHSAA Hall of Fame members with Cape Fear region connections:

1990 — Harvey Reid, Wilson (Fayetteville native)

1993 — Donald Bonner, Lumberton

1994 — Doris Howard, Fayetteville

1996 — Paul Gay, Sanford

1999 — Bob Paroli, Fayetteville

2002 — Bob Lee, Southern Pines; Ray Oxendine, Pembroke

2003 — Raymond "Buddy" Luper, Fayetteville

2004 — Ned Sampson, Pembroke

2005 — Tim Brayboy, Cary (Pembroke native)

2006 — Al Black, Spring Lake; Pat Gainey, Taylorsville (Dunn nativej)

2007 — Bill Carver, Fayetteville

2010 — Tunney Brooks, Lumberton

2012 — Ronnie Chavis, Pembroke

2015 — Gil Bowman, Fayetteville; Bill Harrison, Fayetteville

2017 — Earl Vaughan Jr., Fayetteville