By Stan Cole
Some things you just don't forget.
Four decades after he set an NCAA Division I record by hitting five home runs in one game, Henry Rochelle vividly remembers each of his eight at-bats that day.
On March 30, 1985 – a clear day when temperatures climbed into the mid-80s – a freshman from Holly Ridge, N.C., hit his first home run on the collegiate level, then he hit another, another, another – and another.
No other player in college or major league history had hit more than four home runs in a game – not even Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, or Willie Mays.
Against a first-year program and conference opponent, Radford, Rochelle blasted five home runs in addition to three singles in eight trips to the plate. He broke NCAA records for homers and total bases (23) while matching the mark for runs scored (8) in a game.
Not a bad afternoon for any baseball player – especially for one who only hit four home runs in his high school career, and one that one year earlier wasn't even planning on attending Campbell University.
Teammates, opponents and those outside the fence that day at Taylor Field still recall the day.
The right fit
A resident of Holly Ridge and 3-sport standout at 1-A Dixon High School, Rochelle was a high-level Division I football recruit as a quarterback and planned on signing with North Carolina before he broke his fibula during his senior season.
He remembers well the day that Campbell head coach Cal Koonce attended one of his high school's games but was not initially impressed with what he saw.
"I wasn't pitching that day, I played shortstop," Rochelle recalls. "I saw (Koonce) at the corner of the dugout during the first or second inning, then I saw him walking up past the foul line like he was going to leave, but I watched him stop. He turned and came back."
After the game, Koonce told Rochelle, "At first, I didn't see what I was looking for, but I got to the corner of the fence and said, 'I need to give him a chance, I need to watch the whole game.' That's when I think he made the decision to offer me a partial scholarship."
Four decades later, in the day of early signing periods and online recruiting announcements, it's difficult to believe that in the summer of 1984, Rochelle was still mulling his options of which sport to play and what school to attend. Koonce called with a partial scholarship offer in early August and the decision was made.
The Buies Creek community felt like home to the Onslow County native while the appeal of competing at the Division I level along with smaller class size was just as enticing.
After a week, Rochelle decided to leave.
Were it not for the intervention of the parents of former high school classmate and future Campbell volleyball player Andrea Canady and other community members, plus an ultimatum from his father Parley, that he would need to join the full-time workforce, March 30, 1985 might have turned out to be just another day in Campbell Baseball history.
"Andrea's parents were both educators and Campbell graduates," Rochelle said. "She was at Peace College then and found out that I had quit, so she called her parents, then called me and said, 'there's two sets of parents that want to talk to you.' Well, they told me I need to get my butt back to Buies Creek, because that education was going to last you a lot longer than baseball will. Then my dad said you can stay here as long as you want, but you're going to get a J-O-B."
With employment opportunities limited at the time, that declaration more than likely meant joining the armed forces. At the time Rochelle's brother, Mickey, was in the U.S. Air Force, and he broke down the decision into an easy-to-understand question.
"What would you rather do, go to school and play baseball for 4 years, or get a job?" Henry recalls his brother asking. "Thanks to my parents, Jack Johnson and his wife, Andy and Freddie Canady, I went back to Buies Creek and never looked back because it was the smartest thing I ever did."
Baseball season
For a standout high school athlete, who starred in football, basketball and baseball, the move to a Division I program was quite an adjustment. In the mid-1980s, NCAA baseball teams played about a dozen exhibition games in the fall semester before the spring season commenced in late February or early March.
"In high school, I was a 3-sport athlete with my name in the paper every week, but when I got here, it was like I was just another fly on the wall because everybody was better than you. We played 13 games in fall ball, and I sat the bench," he said.
Rochelle's initial assessment of his team was not far off. Six of his teammates on the 1985 team went on to play professional baseball: Greg Cloninger, John Posey, Cory Satterfield, Marty Warren, James White and Bill Wilkes.
My dad just said, 'keep doing what the coaches ask, and it'll happen," Rochelle recalls.
The 1985 regular season opened Feb. 27 at a North Carolina team that featured the eventual No. 1 (B.J. Surhoff) and No. 11 (Walt Weiss) selections in the Major League Baseball June draft.
One day later, Koonce inserted Rochelle into the lineup as a pinch-hitter – in the ninth inning with two out and the tying runs aboard against Coastal Carolina, Campbell's first Big South opponent.
Admittedly, Rochelle took two bad swings at low and away pitches from Coastal reliever Rick Murray. Down to his final strike, he delivered on the next pitch and doubled down the right field line to tie the game, one that the Camels eventually won 18-17 in 10 innings.
Two days later, Rochelle tossed 3 1/3 innings of relief against Wake Forest and struck out five in his first mound appearance. On March 4, Koonce wrote his name at the top of the lineup, starting in right field at Big South opponent Augusta College. Rochelle singled and doubled in his first two at-bats in CU's 9-6 victory.
He picked up his first career pitching win in relief on Mar. 11 vs. Clemson and saved both games in a Mar. 13 doubleheader sweep of Western Carolina.
Bonding with a World Series champion
Koonce, who pitched 10 years in the major leagues after earning junior college All-America honors at Campbell, was known as a no-nonsense head coach. Rochelle, however, thrived under the tutelage of Koonce, who was a member of the 1969 Amazin' Mets World Series championship team.
"I always had a great relationship with Coach Koonce," said Rochelle. "I had to relearn how to pitch in 3 weeks' time. He was a great coach. He was a stickler and had rules. But, being an introverted person, I'm a rule follower."
Rochelle recalls a time when the team played in the fall of 1984 at UNC Wilmington, and Koonce drove separately so that later he could enjoy an afternoon fishing at North Topsail inlet with the Rochelle family.
"I went to Campbell because I wanted to pitch," Rochelle says. "When we got to fall ball, (Koonce) put me at shortstop, but there's (future Atlanta Braves draftee) Greg Cloninger, 6-foot-4 with a rifle arm. He then asked if I'd ever played any outfield. We need you in right field because your arm is so strong."
Koonce taught Rochelle to throw a slider and changed his delivery to give him an additional three to five miles per hour on his fastball, which then touched the low 90s. As Henry approached his early teens, his father taught him to throw a knuckleball, which he used as his changeup.
In two seasons as a two-way player under Koonce's tutelage, Rochelle made 23 relief appearances, one start, and compiled a 7-0 won-lost record with 11 saves. Over that same span (1985-86), he batted .303 with 23 doubles, 18 home runs and 71 RBI in 80 games as the Camels' everyday right fielder.
Later in life, Rochelle tutored aspiring baseball players in the Onslow County area and shared much of the knowledge he learned from Koonce, and fellow former big league pitcher Mike Caldwell, who coached Henry his final two years at Campbell.
"I used to tell the parents that how I'm teaching your kids to pitch is exactly how Cal Koonce told me to hold a baseball and pitch, to tighten up your body and windup to get more push to the plate," said Rochelle. "I had two really good coaches, two World Series pitchers who coached me at Campbell."
March 30, 1985
"Coach, I think Henry's going to hit a home run today," assistant coach Frank Carmichael told Koonce in the dugout before the Camels took on the Highlanders at Taylor Field.
Not only did Rochelle hit his first career home run, but he added four more in addition to three singles in an 8-for-8 day.
"It was one of those days," he recalls nearly 40 years later. "The ball looked like a volleyball."
Rochelle's recall of each at-bat is as clear as it was in 1985.
"I can tell you every one of them, it's ingrained in my memory," he said. "I remember the first at-bat, I got a ball that was off my hands and just made it over the fence 10-15 feet from the foul pole. My second, fifth and sixth times up, I hit hard ground balls for singles between short and third."
As the Camels batted around in both the third and fourth innings, Rochelle homered to left in both frames.
"The guys who weren't pitching that day were in charge of running down foul balls and home run balls," recalls Scott Evans, who like Rochelle was a freshman from Eastern North Carolina on the 1985 squad. "I remember after Henry hit his third home run, Doug Barefoot said, 'damn Henry, you're wearing us out!'"
His two-run drive off a belt-high curve ball in the seventh inning cleared the light pole in left center field and extended the lead to 31-0. In the latter innings, Koonce substituted for most of the other players in the starting lineup, including slugging first baseman Bill Wilkes (who finished 3-of-5 with two homers and seven RBI).
Ralph Berrier, a freshman walk-on outfielder for Radford's first baseball team, remembers his mind wandering late in the game.
"When I got into the game, about the seventh or something, somebody hit a home run and I looked at the scoreboard we were down 30-something to nothing, and I was thinking, they might score 40, that might be really cool," said Berrier, who as a longtime columnist for the Roanoke Times and freelance journalist has written numerous times about Radford's inaugural baseball season. "Then it dawned on me, hell, I've never seen anybody score 30 runs in a game!"
Rochelle asked for one more at-bat in the eighth, and Koonce gave him the opportunity. After being brushed back for the second-straight time on the first pitch by Radford reliever Gene Riggs, Rochelle again launched a waist-high curve to the same spot.
Forty years ago, few baseball players – except for "Mr. October" Reggie Jackson – drew attention to themselves while rounding the bases following a home run. That sense of decorum was expected to be observed on a Cal Koonce-coached team.
"When I rounded second base, I looked up at Coach Koonce in the third base coaches box, and he did the key sign to his mouth," said Rochelle. "I just kept my head down and kept running around the bases. If you look at the pictures taken at home plate when my teammates were congratulating me, I didn't even smile."
That day, Henry broke NCAA Division I single game records for home runs (5) and total bases (23) and tied the mark for runs scored (8). The Camels set a new NCAA mark for total bases (72) in a game, while posting the second-highest total number of hits (37), home runs (10) and RBI (36) recorded in a game at the time. Campbell scored in every inning.
Rochelle lifted his batting average from .303 to .412 and his slugging percentage from .419 to .804. Nearly lost in the record book is that Warren, a junior right-hander who would later be selected by the Chicago White Sox in the eighth round of the June draft, tossed a six-hit shutout and struck out 12.
Harnett County native Ron McLamb was a student broadcaster for the Campbell-owned WCCE radio station and on the call that day.
"When you're calling a game, obviously you're aware that if someone hits a home run, he might hit another, and when they hit two, you kind of think they might hit a third," said McLamb, who spent 12 years behind the mic for Campbell basketball and baseball games. "When he hit the third one, you think there's no way he's going to hit four. Then laughingly you think to yourself, there's no way he's going to hit a fifth; and then he does!"
The setting
While home plate and the foul lines sit in basically the same location along the eastern edge of the campus, nearly everything else is different about Campbell's home baseball facility.
In 1985, there was no curvature in the outfield fences – which were chain link – stretching straight from the left and right field lines to 426 feet to deepest center field. The flagpole stood inside the fence in center and was in play just like a light pole in deep right center field.
The team dressed beyond the left field fence in a locker room attached to Johnson Natatorium, and shared shower and rest room facilities with the swimming pool dressing area. Rochelle and his fellow freshmen along with other players had to share lockers since there were not enough dressing stalls to accommodate all of the players and coaches.
A small electronic score board, which only kept track of the score, inning, balls, strikes and outs, stood in left center field. Two cinderblock dugouts – painted dark green – stood along the first and third base lines in foul territory, and the field was dirt and grass, maintained for the most part by the Camel players and coaches. Small metal bleachers were located behind home plate and the first and third base sides. The "press box" was a two-story wooden structure that resembled an old tobacco barn and sat about four people in front of a large front window that swung inward and was hooked to the ceiling during the game. The bottom of the building housed a small concession stand and a small storage closet.
Forty years later, Jim Perry Stadium not only includes a padded outfield wall and state-of-the art video board, and television broadcast level lighting, but the Camels play on artificial Astroturf, which only requires daily maintenance of the pitching mound. A raised grandstand stretches from a patio area beside the first base dugout all the way beyond the third base dugout. The press box is climate controlled and sits at the top of the stands behind home plate.
The Jim and Daphne Perry Pavilion stands behind the third base seats, is connected by a tunnel to the home dugout and houses a state-of-the-art dressing room, athletic training and storage facilities on the ground floor along with coaches offices, and meeting areas on the second level.
Campbell's baseball facility was impressive enough for the Houston Astros to call Buies Creek home for their single-A minor league team in 2017 and 2018 before a downtown stadium in Fayetteville was completed in time for the 2019 season.
"If you could pull the ball down the line or hit it the other way, just like to today, it wasn't that far," recalls Evans. "But if you were hitting gap to gap, you had to put a charge in it."
The reaction
As he did after each game in the days before email and even fax machines, Campbell sports information director David Snipes phoned in (or sent a story via a telecopier, which required eight minutes to transmit one typewritten page) game scores and details to local and regional newspapers, TV and radio stations and both the Associated Press and United Press International wire services.
By the time Henry returned home to Holly Ridge on Saturday night following that afternoon's game, his high school AD, baseball and football coach already knew what had happened.
While growing up, Henry and his cousin Ronald Shepard were regarded as two of the best athletes in Onslow County. Their rivalry was friendly, but keen, and it just so happened that when Henry walked into a nightclub in Jacksonville that Saturday night after his big game, one of the first people he saw was Ronald, who had enjoyed a great game that day while playing for Lenoir Community College.
"(Ronald) said, 'hey Henry, did ya'll play ball today? How'd you do?" and I said, 'we won.' I didn't want to say anything about it. So, I asked him how they did, and he said, 'we won, I went 3-for-5 and had two home runs today.' Then he looked at me and said, 'how did you do today?' and I didn't want to say anything, but I said 'I went 8-for-8, hit five home runs and we won 38-0.'
"Literally, he said, 'you're always trying to outdo me, you're lying, and I said, 'look at the paper in the morning' and he walked off, didn't see him the rest of the night.
"Well, the next morning the phone rings and (Ronald) says 'I looked in the paper. How in the hell did you do that!' And I said, 'it was just one of those days," said Henry. "We always joke about it now because we are great friends."
Two days later in the Monday edition of the Dunn Daily Record (which did not print weekend editions), at the start of a story that stretched across the top of page 12, an editor's note read: "This is not an April Fool story."
Henry put on a sport coat and necktie for a photo op with Campbell University president Dr. Norman A. Wiggins, then went back to work for the Camels, who finished the year with a 32-17 record, but in the days before the Big South received an automatic berth in the NCAA regionals, missed out on postseason play.
Rochelle was just a part of the machine that was the 1985 Campbell baseball team. The Camels ended the season ranked first in the nation in home runs hit per game (2.21) and fifth in scoring (9.8). Posey finished second in the country in homers (26), third in slugging (.955) and seventh in RBI (75). Wilkes was second nationally in runs (71), seventh in round-trippers (22) and 13th in RBI (71).
Even in an analog age, the word spread around college baseball over the last six weeks of Campbell's season.
"I didn't get any good pitches, and it was kind of like you're Dave Kingman (who hit 442 career blasts in a 16-year major league career), but I was just a 6-foot-1, 185-pound kid. You get the big head, but you come back down to earth," Rochelle recalled.
Ten days after Rochelle's big day, UNC visited Taylor Field and after future No. 1 draft pick B.J. Surhoff ripped a line drive single (to Rochelle) in right field, he asked Wilkes, who was playing first base that day, "Where's that guy who hit five home runs? Wilkes pointed out to me in right field, and Surhoff said, 'that little guy hit five home runs?!'"
Fourteen years after Rochelle's big day, on May 9, 1999, Marshall McDougall joined Henry on the very short list of the only NCAA baseball players to hit more than four home runs in a game. However, McDougall hit six round-trippers in Florida State's 26-2 win at Maryland.
More than a quarter century later, Henry's reaction to having his record broken is the same as it was in 1999.
"Records are meant to be broken; enjoy it while it lasts," he says. "When somebody else breaks it, congratulate them and move on."
Henry did appreciate the fact that some people had saved newspaper clippings from his record-breaking day, mailed them to him and asked him to autograph them and return the articles for their collection.
Just as he didn't demonstrably celebrate while rounding the bases on any of his five homers that day, Rochelle has never been one to draw attention to himself through the years.
"I don't talk about it unless somebody brings it up."
For the record, Henry's four-year career included many more highlights other than those he accomplished on Mar. 30, 1985. Over his four seasons, Campbell averaged 30 wins per year, and Henry played in 171 games with a .297 batting average, 38 doubles, 24 home runs and 93 RBI. On the mound, his .850 winning percentage (17-3 won-lost record) still stands as the best in CU Division I history. He fashioned a 3.85 ERA and added 11 saves over 45 appearances. He was an all-conference selection as a senior in 1988.
Four decades go by quickly
McLamb, who is still active as a public address announcer for Triton High School football and UNC softball games, remembers just how good that 1985 squad was.
"Winning that game (38-0) that day was memorable, but that team beat Clemson, Maryland twice, UNC Wilmington three times, Western Carolina three times, UNC Charlotte, East Carolina twice, Coastal Carolina. That was just a good team," said McLamb, who was also on the call five years later when the Camels won the 1990 Big South baseball tournament title to claim the program's first trip to the NCAA regionals.
When members of the first Radford baseball team gathered a few months ago to celebrate their inaugural season, most of them chuckled when the conversation turned to March 30, 1985.
"Over the years, somebody like me who worked in newspapers and was always looking for a good story for a column, I would dredge up the story of the first Radford baseball team," said Berrier. "Then I was mining the funny stories, even putting the Campbell game in the funniest context of 'what can this team go through?'"
When Rochelle was featured in Sports Illustrated magazine's "Faces in the Crowd" segment, not only was his and his team's performance highlighted, but Radford was included in the 38-0 final score.
"Jerry Crittenden – who was the catcher on the team – 40 years later said, 'I don't know why we didn't drill that S.O.B.!'" Berrier added. "The funny thing to me is that the rest of us have laughed it off over the years; it's kind of neat to be associated with an NCAA record, but Jerry hadn't gotten over it."
Evans, who faced Rochelle in high school and American Legion ball, before they were part of a freshman class that also included Satterfield and Danny Murphy, recalls Rochelle as being a great, all-around athlete.
"Henry was such a tough out, he ran every ground ball or fly ball out, just a tough, smart, heady player," said Evans, who played at West Brunswick High and for the Brunswick County legion team. I don't think at the time we were smart enough to realize until years later just how great an athlete Henry was. He ran balls down in the gap and saved us a lot. I don't think Henry ever got the credit for the defensive player he was. He had an incredible arm in the outfield."
Rochelle, Satterfield and Evans were also known for their skills on the basketball court, where they were all high school starters before enrolling at Campbell.
"Henry could dunk and jump out of the gym for somebody his size (6-foot-1)," Evans recalls.
Berrier recalls a game later in the 1985 season, when Campbell played Radford at George Wythe High School (since Radford had not yet built its home baseball field), and his younger brother was sitting in the stands with his father.
"Ricky was a 10th grader when I was on that team at Radford," Ralph recalled. "My dad said, 'Ricky, if you keep working hard, maybe you could play at Campbell someday.'"
Ricky did indeed enroll at Campbell as a freshman in the fall of 1987, played 36 games for the '88 Big South champs, and as the starting first baseman two years later, caught a pop up for the final out of the 1990 title contest.
The connections between Ralph Berrier and the NCAA home run record continued when he was later joined on the Roanoke Times staff by sportswriter Aaron McFarling, who was the Maryland pitcher who surrendered McDougall's sixth home run.
Over the years, Henry has worked in law enforcement, coached high school baseball and now works in support at Sanders Ford, Inc. He's an enthusiastic hunter and fisherman.
The five home run game certainly was memorable but does not even make his list of the top three most important moments of a life that includes becoming a grandfather this summer.
"Other than marrying Dawn, and having Taylor born," says Henry, "being a grandfather is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me."
The celebration
Rochelle and many of his teammates have returned to Buies Creek through the years for baseball games, golf, and most importantly, spending time catching up and sharing old stories. On Sat., Apr. 26, they will gather once again as Rochelle will throw out the first pitch to his college catcher Eric Ellis at Jim Perry Stadium to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his monster game before Campbell's game against Towson.
"You go through life getting married, having a family, spend your time with your family, but 10 or 12 years ago, we started going back (to Campbell)," he said. "It's like a fraternity, your baseball teammates and friends and the camaraderie we have. When we get together, it's like where did all the years ago? It's funny how when I see Cory, Scotty or anybody from Campbell, it brings so many good memories back. We relish the time we had together."
