When it comes to baseball, any serious fan of the sport will tell you that the greatest thing about the game is its rich history. One of the best sports movies of all time is baseball's "Field of Dreams" with Kevin Costner and the legendary James Earl Jones.
One of the more memorable scenes between the two stars came when they were digging through old newspaper clippings about Doctor Archibald "Moonlight" Graham. Jones mentions that while the story is impressive there is possibly a "Doc Graham" in nearly every small town.
In a world that is in need of positive, feel-good stories right now, it's time to shine a spotlight on WVU Tech's Joe Goddard.
Goddard was born in the summer of 1950 in the small town of Slab Fork. As a teenager he discovered a love for baseball and while honing his game, he popped up on the radar of Marshall University's skipper Jack Cook.
Cook convinced Goddard to attend Marshall and catch for his Thundering Herd nine. After the 1971 season his stay in Huntington was cut short. His sophomore numbers sparked a serious interest for Major League Baseball as a whole and the National League's San Diego Padres in particular. The Padres would draft Goddard with an eighth round selection.
The Padres and the Montreal Expos had joined the show in 1969 via the latest MLB expansion. So Goddard would have an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the then-infant ball club.
At the age 20 Joe packed up his catcher's mitt and spikes, leaving West Virginia for the Pacific Northwest. Tri-City was the first professional jersey Goddard would wear, but with his defensive skills and unmeasurable knowledge of the game he wasn't long for Class A baseball.
Goddard started his second season of pro ball with the Alexandria Aces of the Texas League in Class AA baseball, but it would end with him playing in the majors.
Only days after his 22nd birthday, Goddard made his MLB debut on July 31, 1972, in the legendary Houston Astrodome. The next night in Atlanta, Joe would play against one of the most prolific players of all time, Hall of Famer Henry "Hank" Aaron. He collected his first big league hit at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles off Claude Osteen on Aug. 5, 1972.
Goddard would have two call-ups to the bigs during the 1972 season, in which he would play in 12 games under one of the more famous skippers in Don Zimmer. Zimmer had replaced the Padres original manager, Preston Gomez, 11 games into the 1972 season. "Popeye" as he was known in the baseball world was quick to notice the IQ of his young catcher and wasn't afraid to tell veteran players about it.
Goddard would spend another four seasons in the Padres organization between the AAA and AA levels but never found his way back to the major leagues. In total, Joe would spend six years in professional baseball, ending his career as a player-coach at the AA Level.
In 1976, he realized it was time to refocus his goals in life.
The opportunity to join the ranks as a coach in the Padres organization was there as Zimmer wasn't the only one who noticed the depth to which Goddard understood the game. Faced with a tough decision, he turned down staying in professional baseball, feeling he may be able to do more good if he chose a different path.
Joe headed back home to West Virginia with his focus being on finishing his degree at Marshall. That same year in Raleigh County, Independence High School was set to open its doors for the first time and would be in need of a baseball coach to start a program from scratch. From 1976 on, the rest of the story is nothing short of historical.
In the sports world it's not uncommon for folks to say "Yankee Stadium is the house that Ruth built" and later that "Safeco Field is the house that Ken Griffey Jr. built." One more for good measure is Lucas Oil Stadium is "the house that Peyton Manning built." While these mega superstars paved the way for those beautiful facilities, it wasn't like any of them actually jumped on a tractor to build something. But if you catch Joe with a minute or two he would rather talk about what it took to clear the land to build the high school a diamond than his time with the Padres.
At the end of his 36-year coaching stint at Independence, which included the 1990 Class AA state championship, 1989 AA state runner-up, six regional titles and 11 sectional titles, the school named the baseball diamond "Joseph H. Goddard Field." It was so fitting because it was actually the house that Joe Goddard built with his own hands.
There are also multiple stretches over that same 36 years that Joe would step in and coach other sports at the school any time they were short-handed.
The number of lives touched in a positive manner by both the students and student-athletes being exposed to a man of Joe's character has to be well in the tens of thousands.
It's hard to choose which is the most impressive part of the Goddard story, but any list would have to include his humility and success in raising his children, Dr. Nicole Goddard and Dr. Matthew Goddard.
The next major appreciation for Goddard came in 2015 when Marshall inducted the living legend into their athletics Hall of Fame.
Once Joe reached his 60s, he was still looking for ways to share both his knowledge and love for the game with young players. After a stint of six years helping coach the Prospect League's West Virginia Miners, Goddard reached out to a fellow baseball lifer in Lawrence "Big Picture '' Nesselrodt. The two combined have over eight decades of baseball between them so the only natural thing to do was for Goddard to join the staff at WVU Tech after the school relocated to its current campus in downtown Beckley, where Joe has been the bench coach for the last five years.
Nesselrodt was quoted as saying, "Two of his greatest blessings in his 38 years of college coaching, are to have coached in the same dugout with the legendary Calvin "Cal" Bailey and Joe Goddard who are both now members of the West Virginia State Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame."
Today, Goddard receives yet another distinguished honor as the West Virginia State Coaches Association will be adding him to its Hall of Fame. We will conclude the story by saying congratulations to Joe Goddard and "Go Golden Bears!" The only thing missing from this remarkable story is a cool nickname like "Moonlight."
The other two men Joe will be sharing this prestigious honor with are George Hott and Robert Montgomery.
Hott lettered in football at WVU before playing Minor League Baseball with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization in 1950 and 1951. Between his two stints, Hott also spent 17 months of military service in Germany before returning to Shepherd University. After graduation in 1957, Hott would have a three-week stint with the Washington Redskins of the NFL, before returning home to Hardy County. He spent 25 years as the head baseball coach at Moorefield High School, 22 years as a football coach. During his 25 years, Hott's teams would make five state tournament appearances when there were no school classifications.
Montgomery spent 43 years at the helm of the John Marshall Monarchs. During his time as head coach, he would win a state championship in 1985, make five appearances in the state baseball playoffs and 28 sectional titles. Montgomery finished his coaching career with 870 wins.
