Induction set for Saturday in Franklin

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Roy Mewbourne, former baseball coach at Birmingham Southern and Vanderbilt, and a key force behind the building of the new Reese Smith, Jr. baseball stadium at Middle Tennessee, will be inducted into the Tennessee Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Saturday night.

Joining former University of Tennessee baseball coach Rod Delmonico and legendary Christian Brothers High School Coach Buster Kelso, the trio of coaches will be honored at the annual TBCA Clinic in Franklin.

Mewbourne’s teams won 922 games in his seven years at Birmingham Southern and his 24 years at Vanderbilt, where he won one SEC championship.

He joined the Blue Raider Athletic Association in December 2002, primarily to raise money and to oversee design of a proposed new baseball facility at Middle Tennessee.

“I’ve been here going on ten years now and the time has just flown by,” added Mewbourne. “I have really enjoyed my time at Middle Tennessee because the people and the camaraderie here is really close.”

Mewbourne was the baseball coach at Vanderbilt when the Commodores built their new stadium, Hawkins Field, and he headed the fund-raising effort and design for that facility.

“That is how I got into the fund-raising end of college athletics, and is the reason that I am at Middle Tennessee today,” Mewbourne said. “I am very likely the only person to oversee all of the fund-raising and work that goes into design and construction for two college baseball fields. Most coaches can probably say one, but they can’t say two.”

Mewbourne confesses to occasionally missing the “game-time” part of coaching, the playing in games and “trying to figure out how to win, and the strategy during the game.”

Not only is he thrilled to be going into the TBCA Hall of Fame with Delmonico and Kelso, Mewbourne is in awe of many of the people he knows that are already in the Hall of Fame. “Anytime you are selected by your peers to a Hall of Fame it’s special,” pointed out Mewbourne. “And to go in there with the likes of Larry Schmittou, John Stanford, Steve Peterson, and a bunch more, means a lot.

“And there are high school coaches like Gene Etter, and junior college coaches like Jackie Reavis, who was down at Motlow, Jim Painter who coached at Columbia State, all great coaches.

“It is just a real honor; it really is, to be thought of in the category of those individuals.”

Courtesy of Athletic Communications, GoBlueRaiders.com