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BELLAIRE –There have been quite a few locals to have come out of the area high schools who prospered as the result of college scholarships, and West Virginia University reaped some of those benefits. Bellaire High School seemed to be a big supplier of talent and Mike Sherwood was one of those student-athletes.
Brought to WVU by local connections, Sherwood would see WVU in the news but the strongest connection was his father, who played football for WVU back in 1937. He was injured and since medical care wasn’t back then what it is now, they released him.
“I was familiar with WVU through him and then there was Lee Patrone who was a guy, as a kid, I watched play basketball here at Bellaire,” Sherwood explained. Patrone played basketball for WVU on the 1959 team with Jerry West that lost to California in the NCAA championship game.
Another connection to the area and WVU was the former coach at Martins Ferry, Hayden Buckley, who recruited Sherwood to WVU while a coach there. Sherwood studied education and continued with that where he earned a master’s degree. But coaching is what he really sought after college.
“Well, I knew one of the things I wanted to do was coach and so that was the obvious thing to do,” Sherwood explained.
He worked as a graduate assistant at WVU then moved on to coach four years at Bethany College. Then, he found his old recruiter Buckley at Waynesburg College, where he coached for another two years before returning to Bellaire as head coach in 1980 staying for four years. After that, it was time for his introduction to the athletic director’s position where that lasted for two years.
Sherwood also took on the assistant principal's job for six years in combination with the AD’s position. There, Sherwood spent the next 15 years strictly as the assistant principal at Bellaire, where he followed up as principal for the next five.
He then retired but worked part time at Oglebay Park then followed that with a stint at Belmont County Senior Services. But he’s managed to stick around the valley where it will always be home.
“This has always been home you know, and Bellaire, growing up here as a kid and the whole Ohio Valley as a matter of fact, when we were kids spent a lot of time in Wheeling,” He recalled. “You know, that was a big part of our growing up.” He knows things have changed but “it’s always been home.”
Sherwood compiled a record of 25-7 during his years at WVU with a blazing 10-1 year under Head Coach Jim Carlen in 1969, just before Bobby Bowden took over in 1970. It culminated with a Peach Bowl Victory where he only threw two passes because of the constant downpour that turned the field into a mud bath. After graduating, he had a few calls regarding the National Football League but nothing came of it. The Canadian Football League was an option but circumstances and a basic lack of interest on his part led him out of football as a player for good.
“It wasn’t a guaranteed thing, so I just stayed in school,” he said of his chances north of the border.
Sherwood, who has two brothers and a sister, was asked about the changes he’s seen in education over the years but he couldn’t put a finger on what was good or bad over the years.
“There’s constantly new things coming around, everybody has the new secret to teaching, so there’s been a lot of changes,” he said. “We’re pretty much a direct reflection of society in the schools. And I don’t think we have the, as a society or as schools, I don’t see as good a discipline.”
Sherwood stopped there but agreed to the notion that there has been a breakdown in society within the family structure.
“And that affects a lot of kids very negatively,” he explained where he felt that it wasn’t the students as much as the parents who have changed. “They make a lot more excuses for them now than parents did years ago.”
Sherwood feels that teachers are required to do and teach kids the things they should be learning at home, including issues that were not required to be taught during his time in school. As far as changes in the college sports world, he doesn’t care for what is going on there either.
“I don’t particularly like the direction of college sports right now,” he said. “I think it’s becoming too much like the professionals.”
But he understands that times change where one must be ready to change with it or get left behind.
Sherwood spoke of the connection to Bowden, who he kept in touch with off and on with over the years. He loved playing for Bowden, who was actually offered the Marshall job two years prior to the 1970 plane crash that killed 75 players, coaches and other traveling party members. One interesting tidbit was that after the crash, Sherwood's brother Kelly played on that "Young Thundering Herd" team of 1971, where he caught a couple of passes on the winning drive where they defeated Xavier.
Sherwood was not in constant contact with Bowden but they did speak from time to time. They hooked up again with Bowden just a few years before he died for a banquet that was held at WVU.