Kings Mountain slugger Rusty Bumgardner inducted into National Softball Hall of Fame

Kings Mountain native Rusty Bumgardner’s sports career came full circle recently when he was inducted into the National Softball Hall of Fame at its 41st annual ceremony in Shreveport, LA.

His list of Hall of Fame inductions include the Kings Mountain Sports Hall of Fame and the USSSA, ISA, WSL, ASA, USA and North Carolina USSSA Halls of Fame. Bumgardner says this latest honor and his hometown hall of fame inductions are the most special.

“Any Hall of Fame is truly awesome,” Bumgardner said, “but my hometown and this means more to me. This is the original. I’m privileged to be in it. It dates back to the sixties when they had teams like Howard’s Furniture and other big time teams that paved the way. That makes this award even more meaningful.”

Longtime Kings Mountain High School fans can remember Bumgardner’s exploits on the football and baseball fields. He went on to play four years of football at Wake Forest University under Coach Bill Dooley and he and his high school teammate Aubrey Hollifield helped the Deacons post some of their best records back then.

“We were both redshirted our freshman year and then started every year,” he recalled. “We graduated Kings Mountain High School in ’87 and we had really good teams there in 1985 and 1986. In the fall of ’86 we won the conference championship for the first time since 1964. Both of us played four years and were winners our last season.

“Some of my best memories were at Kings Mountain Junior High and High School,” he said. “David Heffner was our coach at the junior high and Denny Hicks at the high school. Then I helped Coach (Bruce) Clark in high school baseball. My father (the late Bud Bumgardner) helped him from ’89 to ’93 when we won state championships.

I had just started at Wake Forest when dad got sick.

I took a semester off in the spring of 1989 and helped Coach Clark that year. I also helped Coach Clark in ’93. In ’89 we had people like Paul Brannon and Dale Greene and in ’93 people like Stephen Fisher, Todd Ware, Rick Marr, Damon Putnam and others. The ’89 team wasn’t expected to win. We didn’t even win the conference. South Point did. Once the playoffs started we got on a roll. Paul Brannon hit 20 home runs and Chad and Chris Plonk had double digit home runs. Our pitching staff fell in place with Todd McDaniel, Robert Wingo and Sharee Hopper. Wingo was a sophomore and pitched the state championship game. The hitting and pitching just all came together at the right time.”

Always a heavy hitter in baseball, Bumgardner was a natural for softball. He got his start with Coach Mike Grayson, whose wife Suzanne would later join the coaching staff at KMHS and lead the girls volleyball and softball teams to state championships.

Looking back on his Wake Forest career, Bumgardner said it was “just overwhelming. You started having fun and the football team just took off under Coach Dooley.

“As far as baseball, I just played my senior year because football was over. But I wish I’d played all four years. It was a memorable time. My freshman year of football our left tackle got hurt and they put me in there and I became a starter.”

His first start is one he will always remember.

“It was against Michael Dean Perry at Clemson,” he noted. “On film I saw him just picking up people and throwing them out of the way. I was determined he wasn’t going to do that to me. It ended up he made just one tackle that day.”

As for softball, he said the highlight was playing on teams that won 24 world titles and had 34 all-star selections. Bumgardner was All-World four times and was a two-time World Series MVP.

All-World, he said, was like an All-American team. He was All-American 18 straight years beginning