First Winthrop NCAA tournament team among those honored, inducted to Eagles’ hall of fame
Winthrop University’s athletics hall of fame celebrated its latest inductees Friday night, prompting emotions and reactions running the gamut from laughter to tears.
Honored at the event were John Godbold, a booster for the athletic program, Cari (Wooldridge) Moore, a softball pitcher from 2007-2010 who helped Winthrop to its first-ever NCAA Regional appearance, and the 1998-99 men’s basketball team, the first team in school history to ever appear in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
Godbold has been a part of the Winthrop community since his childhood, attending and playing sports the Winthrop Training School during high school.
Inducted as an outstanding contributor, Godbold has helped with improvements and renovations to both the athletic training rooms and locker rooms at Winthrop.
“The legacy is the people at Winthrop and the relationships,” Godbold said. “This has allowed me to stay in sports. I’ve been in sports all my life. I played basketball at the University of South Carolina, officiated football for 40 years, and now I’m continuing in sports, and that’s what’s exciting. That’s what my life’s all about is staying with sports, staying with coaches, staying with players and just enjoying sports.”
Moore said that she’s been receiving congratulations from several former coaches and teammates about her induction.
After a four-year career that included two Big South Conference Tournament MVP awards and an NFCA All-Region selection, Moore joined Winthrop’s softball staff as a volunteer pitching coach in 2011 and was the acting pitching coach from 2015-2018.
Moore still coaches pitching on the side, and uses her experience at Winthrop to help her students understand what it takes to succeed at a high level.
“With my girls, I just try to be the biggest mentor and talk to them about my experiences as an athlete, my experiences as a student-athlete,” Moore said. “What a great time I had. I tell people all the time, ‘I would not trade my four years as a Winthrop student-athlete for anything.’ My girls that I teach and I coach, I tell them that’s an experience you will never get anywhere else.”
The 1998-99 Winthrop men’s basketball team was picked in the preseason to finish last in the Big South Conference.
Instead, under the instruction of first-year head coach Gregg Marshall, the Eagles finished with a 21-9 record and earned the first NCAA Tournament appearance in program history.
Several members of the team, including Marshall, were in attendance at Friday night’s ceremony.
“I think that group of young men is a special group of young men because of how they allowed a new group of coaches to impact their lives not just on the court, but in the classroom, in the community,” Marshall said. “...We brought Tyson Waterman back. We did some things, and we were able to turn it around, and we were able to win a conference championship after being picked dead last, and then it just started to snowball.”
That team was the first of four in a row to reach the NCAA Tournament. Marshall led the teamn to seven total tourney appearances during his tenure.
Marshall said one of the biggest things that allowed him to be successful was being allowed the room to grow and learn how to succeed.
He’s seen how his success propagated success for future Winthrop basketball teams, and he wants that trend to continue. Marshall said he remembers the capacity crowds he had during his time at Winthrop and wants to see that level of support return.
“I’ve watched Coach (Mark) Prosser’s team,” Marshall said. “I’m impressed with what they’re doing this year. I think there should be more people in the stands. Everybody wants a winner, and it’s kind of, what comes first: the chicken or the egg?”
“Support these guys. They deserve it. This is a great program. This is a great coaching staff. They have tremendous athletes. They do it the right way...They’re quality student-athletes, quality coaches and deserve support, and it’s right here. This area has grown, but the support for the program has not kept up with that growth. Let’s support these guys.”
The 2024 Winthrop Athletics Hall of Fame class will be again honored at the men’s basketball game at Saturday’s 2 p.m. game against Radford.
This story was originally published January 13, 2024 at 11:41 AM.