*We will have photo's and short story from the ceremony next week on www.uscsalkathletics.com
CONWAY
CONWAY
The conversation started rather simply, with a question about his selection into Coastal Carolina University’s athletics hall of fame, but sure enough, Jess Dannelly was quickly knee-deep in a colorful story.
Within minutes he was telling about farmers driving their trucks full of cantaloupes and watermelons to the softball field in his hometown of Ehrhardt for evening men’s league games back in the 1970s.
Ever the storyteller, one tale bled into the next and then another as Dannelly sat in his office Wednesday afternoon, talking for well over an hour about how he ended up at Coastal Carolina and the highlights of his nearly three decades involved with Chanticleer athletics.
Within minutes he was telling about farmers driving their trucks full of cantaloupes and watermelons to the softball field in his hometown of Ehrhardt for evening men’s league games back in the 1970s.
Ever the storyteller, one tale bled into the next and then another as Dannelly sat in his office Wednesday afternoon, talking for well over an hour about how he ended up at Coastal Carolina and the highlights of his nearly three decades involved with Chanticleer athletics.
As former CCU athletic director Warren “Moose” Koegel would say later over the phone, “Jess is Coastal Carolina University throughout his whole body and his family.”
And Friday night, in a ceremony inside Coastal’s Adkins Field House, Dannelly’s extended CCU family will formally recognize him for his contributions to the university as one of five new inductees into the school’s Sasser Athletics Hall of Fame.
“It’s a great honor to even be thought about,” he said.
But an inevitable one nonetheless.
And Friday night, in a ceremony inside Coastal’s Adkins Field House, Dannelly’s extended CCU family will formally recognize him for his contributions to the university as one of five new inductees into the school’s Sasser Athletics Hall of Fame.
“It’s a great honor to even be thought about,” he said.
But an inevitable one nonetheless.
In 22 seasons as Coastal’s head softball coach, Dannelly compiled a Big South Conference-record 669 victories along with seven conference coach of the year awards and four NCAA Regional appearances.
On the field, he was known for his signature straw hat, his unyielding competitiveness -- including more than a few run-ins with umpires -- and, the unmistakable thick southern drawl that is always ready to deliver an anecdote, memory or story.
So back to Ehrhardt ...
As he tells it, Dannelly got involved with softball when his good friend Hallman Sease started a fast-pitch team for the area around 1969 or 1970. He’d remain an active player in the sport until 1992.
“We had farmers, dairy men, construction people, all walks of life,” he said. “... But what Sease expected, when we walked into that gate ... farming was over, construction work was over. He would say, ‘Alright guys, it’s time to play softball.’ He instilled in us we didn’t play just for the hell of playing; we were there to win ballgames.”
That’s the approach he’d carry with him through his own coaching career.
Dannelly actually came upon his first coaching job when he saw the dean of USC Salkehatchie in a K-Mart outside of Columbia. Dannelly had attended the school before graudating from South Carolina, and the dean told him they were looking to start a baseball program.
Soon enough, he was installed as the athletic director and baseball coach at Salkehatchie, where he would spend the next 10 years. And even now, he still remembers waking up at 4 a.m. the day of his first game as coach and getting to the field to watch the sunrise hours in advance of the game’s 1 p.m. start.
“I was that fired up about it,” he said. “At that time I believed as long as they played good, I didn’t care if we won or lost. It took about three games for that [thinking] to go away.”
Dannelly laughed, as he did often during the conversation in his office -- such as in explaining how he came to be the Chants’ softball coach in the first place.
