* Bob Bartholomew - (2006)

    I remember Bob Bartholomew from his football playing days.
    It began when he was at Rocky Mount High School, but from a distance.  In helping select the annual Greensboro Daily News All-State prep football team, you couldn’t miss a stringbean tackle from down East, about 6 foot 1, weighting 190 pounds, a crewcut blond with an infectious smile.
    Bob went to Staunton Military Academy for a year, and when he arrived at the old Wake Forest campus, not too far from his Rocky Mount upbringing, Tom Rogers was the head football coach.
    The young freshman was now an inch taller, 6-2, and he had gained to 215.  It was the last year that freshmen played with the varsity, and Bob earned a real name early.
    Before it was over, Bill Hensley, the sports information director, had used all the adjectives like strong, aggressive, smart, hard-charger, hard to fool.  Bob became the “Devastating Deacon,” but this is getting ahead of memory lane.
    Bartholomew’s first season saw the Deacons finish 5-4-1, but Wake Forest won four of its last six games.
    Hensley began the 1953 season with this observation on Bob:  “A sophomore who played like a pro during his freshman year.”
    The team had a lousy record, but through all this Bartholomew gained starring honors.  He was voted second team All-ACC, barely edged by Stan Jones (Maryland) and Ed Meadows (Duke).
    The Associated Press named Bob the Sophomore of the Week after the Duke (when he had 16 unassisted tackles) and Richmond games.  Bob ended up as the AP’s Sophomore of the Year in the ACC.
    Probably the highlight of the big blond’s Wake Forest career came as a junior, although this team finished with his worst record, 2-7-1.  The Deacons were still wearing those black uniforms, jersey, pants and helmet, with a few gold stripes, but their field fortunes were solid black.
    Maybe the string began to unravel in Bowman Gray Stadium in mid-October with a 13-13 tie with Maryland, the defending national champions and then ranked number 12.  Bob, who came into the season after a knee operation, earned the plaudits of Maryland coach Jim Tatum who called Bartholomew “a one-man wrecking crew.”  Now weighing 218, Bob would make several All-America selections:  first team Williamson, second team NEA.
    The Deacons were up 13-7 in the fourth quarter and had the ball at the Maryland 1, but an offside penalty shoved them back.  It was written in the (Greensboro) Daily News:  “Bartholomew was not a one-man operation on Maryland’s high ranking in the country.  There were leaders all down the line.  But big number 45 was so tough that the Terps tried to run their plays away from the Rocky Mount star after the first quarter.”
    It was Bob’s best game.  He earned AP national lineman of the week honors.  
    Bartholomew was All-ACC three years, adding All-America honors his second year.  He also made the Academic All-America team with his good grades in the business school, selected one of Wake Forest’s top 10 seniors.
    Bob Bartholomew returned to Wake Forest in 1969 as executive director of the Deacon Club Foundation.  It was an assignment in which he turned from a five-figure participation to well over seven figures by the time of his untimely death in 1984.
    All those sophomore adjectives that Bill Hensley applied to the All-American-to-be, when he was a great football player, held true to his final days.  Go back and reread them as a refresher.

By the late Smith Barrier
Member, NC Sport Hall of Fame
Written in 1985