J.H. Rose baseball coach Ronald Vincent to be inducted into National High School Hall of Fame
Longtime J.H. Rose baseball coach Ronald Vincent will be inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame, the National Federation of State High School Associations announced on Monday morning.
Vincent just began his 51st season as the baseball coach at J.H. Rose. Last year, he won his 1,000th career game with the Rampants.
Win No. 1,000 came on Apr. 11, 2023, with a win over Jacksonville. Vincent entered the 2023 season with a career record of 985-292. No other baseball coach in North Carolina has won more games than Vincent. His win total ranks top ten nationally.
In his time at J.H. Rose, Vincent led the Rampants to seven N.C. High School Athletic Association state championships. The first title in 1975 came two years after taking over the role as baseball coach at his alma mater.
Vincent's other state championships came in 1997, 1999, 20023, 20024, 2008, and 2021. The 1999 team finished the season with an unbeaten 28-0 record, and Vincent was named the Mid-Atlantic Baseball Coach of the Year.
In addition to coaching baseball, Vincent also served as an assistant football coach for more than three decades. He was part of five state championship teams, winning football titles in 1975, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006.
“Ronald Vincent ... is much more than a coach. He’s a leader in the community. He’s a Boy Scout advisor, he’s a member of the boards of directors for multiple youth organizations, and he’s a staple at J. H. Rose High School,” J.H. Rose athletic director Clay Medlin said. “He’s found at school almost every day doing whatever it is that needs to be done – painting the football and soccer fields in the morning while cutting the grass in the afternoon. He also is keeping the clock for basketball games in the winter, and helping the lacrosse and softball coaches fix their fields in the spring.”
Vincent was a teacher at J.H. Rose from 1973 until 2009, he was the athletic director in the late 1990s, and also coached basketball and wrestling.
The National High School Hall of Fame is just the latest honor for Vincent.
In 2010, Vincent was inducted into the N.C. Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, then the NCHSAA Hall of Fame in 2014. The NCHSAA also named Vincent one the "100 Coaches to Remember" during its Centennial Celebration in 2013. That same year, the NFHS named Vincent the Section 3 Coach of the Year.
Vincent received the N.C. Order of the Long Leaf Pine in 2003, the highest civilian honor a North Carolinan can receive. The following year, J.H. Rose named the field house in his honor.
Last year, Vincent was named the HighSchoolOT Honors Lifetime Achievement Award winner.
Others inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame in 2024
Four outstanding former high school athletes, including Joe Mauer, a three-sport standout at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, before his celebrated career with the Minnesota Twins, highlight the 2024 class of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) National High School Hall of Fame.
Joining the four former athletes in this year’s class are four highly successful high school coaches, two former state association administrators and one contest official. The 11 honorees will be inducted July 1 during the 41st induction ceremony of the National High School Hall of Fame, which will be held at the 105th NFHS Summer Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.
At Cretin-Derham Hall High School, Joe Mauer batted .567 with 43 home runs and struck out only once in 222 at-bats. He led Cretin-Derham Hall to a state football title as a junior and to a state baseball title as a senior.
The other three former athletes in the 2024 class are Takeo Spikes, who as a two-way football player (tight end, linebacker) helped Washington County High School in Sandersville, Georgia to a 15-0 mark and a state championship in 1994; Tyrone Wheatley, who was one of the greatest multi-sport high school athletes in Michigan history during his career at Dearborn Heights Robichaud High School in the late 1980s; and Dot Ford Burrow, who scored 82 points in a basketball game for Smithville (Mississippi) High School in 1949-50 when she averaged almost 50 points a game and was making headlines long before her grandson, Joe Burrow.
The four coaches in this year’s class have coached an astounding combined 194 years (48.5 average) and claimed a total of 43 state championships in volleyball, football, swimming and baseball. These four remarkable individuals include Paula Kirkland, who was won 1,088 volleyball matches at Dorman High School in Roebuck, South Carolina, and led her teams to 15 state championships in 43 years; Gary Rankin, the winningest high school football coach in Tennessee history during his 42-year career in which he has led teams to 17 state championships at four different schools; Roy Snyder, who started the swimming program at Wilson High School in West Lawn, Pennsylvania, in 1964 and has 611 victories and four state championships in an amazing 59 years; and Ronald Vincent, who won the 1,000th baseball game of his career last year at J. H. Rose High School in Greenville, North Carolina and has led his teams to seven state titles in 50 years.
The official in this year’s class is David Gore, a baseball and football official from Norman, Oklahoma, for 37 and 35 years, respectively, who officiated nine Oklahoma Secondary School
Activities Association state football championship games.
The administrators in this year’s class are Mike Colbrese, who retired in 2019 after 37 years as an administrator in three state high school associations, including the final 26 years as executive director of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, and who had major contributions to NFHS committees and boards; and Marie Ishida, the first female president and first female executive director of the California Interscholastic Federation who had major contributions at the state level and nationally with the NFHS.
