ADAM HOUSTON photo. 2015. Carson's Heath Mitchem accepts the Mark Norris Memorial Award as the Rowan County Player of the Year from Eric Norris .

 

By Mike London

Salisbury Post

SALISBURY — Eric Norris is 75 now and will celebrate 55 years of being married to Kathy Weaver Norris in August.

Norris sold his childhood baseball card collection recently — he had seven of the rare 1952 Topps Willie Mays cards — but there is something baseball-related that he never will let go of. That’s the Mark Norris Memorial Award that honors his younger brother. Mark Norris died in a 1977 accident on Majolica Road a few days before Christmas. He had come home from UNC Pembroke for the holidays.

The Norris Award is an honor that is synonymous with the Rowan County Player of the Year Award. When you speak of the “Norris” or mention a “Norris winner” baseball fans know exactly what you’re talking about.

There was a time when Norris Award winners took a brief bow before an American Legion game at Newman Park, shook Eric’s hand near the first-base line and smiled for a photo op, but times change. There hasn’t been a Norris Award winner since 2019 who spent his summer playing for Rowan County American Legion, so adjustments were needed.

Due to the pandemic, there was no Norris Award winner announced for a 2020 season that was shuttered after a handful of games. That was a shame because Carson’s Dylan Driver and East Rowan’s Wayne Mize and Charlie Klingler, among others, were off to sensational starts. That was the first time there hadn’t been a Norris Award since 1978.

When the award made a comeback for the COVID half-season, Vance Honeycutt accepted the 2021 trophy in the parking lot at Salisbury High. Eric Norris got to not only bump fists with Honeycutt, he got to chat with him and he got to meet his parents, Bobby and Leah Ann.

Norris enjoyed that experience, and so Norris, Nathan Chrismon and Chrismon’s parents, Thad and Angie, met at Porky’s in China Grove in 2022 for a burger, a trophy presentation and a relaxed conversation. Nathan accepted the award as he was interviewed about South Rowan’s state championship season.

East Rowan’s Cobb Hightower won back-to-back Norris Awards in 2023-24, so the Hightowers, Brian and Addie, convened at DJ’s with Eric and Kathy Norris, for meals and awards. Cobb was a state champ in 2024 and was a third-round draft pick not long after that meeting.

Harrison Ailshie, Hightower’s teammate on the 2024 team, is this year’s winner. It took some time to catch up with the two-way star, as he’s been busy playing for the South Charlotte Panthers all over the place. But the Norris Award finally was presented last week to a very deserving winner.

This time it was a larger group meeting at DJ’s, with Harrison’s brother, Brady — he was an all-county pitcher as a freshman — Brady’s girlfriend, East athlete Jordan Dry, and Ailshie’s parents, Blaine and Sara. Harrison’s girlfriend, Mary Church, the Rowan County Basketball Player of the Year, would have made an appearance, as well, but she was busy with obligations at Meredith College.

Between bites, they all got to listen as Eric Norris told the story of Mark Norris and the award that keeps his memory alive every year.

“Mark was a tough, physical guy, a guard on the football team and the catcher on the baseball team,” Eric said. “He reminded people of (New York Yankees catcher) Thurman Munson.”

Mark captained the Salisbury Hornets baseball team in 1975 and 1976.

He was in his second year of college at UNC Pembroke (the 1977-78 school year) when he died.

The Norris family has long been major supporters of Salisbury High. Ned Norris, Eric and Mark’s father, was a president of the booster club. Ned’s wife, Ilene, was on the football program committee.

“The Mark Norris Memorial Award came about through a booster club project, with the idea being to give an award to the Salisbury baseball team’s MVP and honor Mark’s memory,” Eric said. “I was asked to make that first presentation at the awards banquet and to say a few words.”

Salisbury center fielder Clai Martin, who batted .345 in 1978, was shocked — pleasantly — at the spring awards banquet by the presentation of the inaugural Mark Norris Memorial Award.

“That award meant the world to me in 1978 because Mark had been a teammate,” Martin said. “I’m 65 now, and it means even more now than it did then.”

The first Norris Award cost $45, but Martin wouldn’t take $4,500 for it today. It’s priceless, the shining moment of his athletic career. There aren’t many days he doesn’t walk past that still handsome trophy and smile. Forty-seven years later, it’s still proudly displayed in his home, along with all the trophies and plaques that his children (Taylor and Seth) earned while playing sports for West Rowan and Catawba College.

Martin also recalls the biggest regret of his athletic career that happened not long after that award presentation. Rowan County American Legion coach Joe Ferebee put Martin in left field, rather than center, where he wanted to be, so Martin quit the team.

“I was young and that wasn’t very smart, but it turned out that I helped the Legion program in the long run,” Martin said with a laugh. “The guy Coach Ferebee replaced me with in left field was Coe Brier.”

Eric Norris presented awards at athletic banquets to Salisbury MVPs Mike Lippard in 1979 and Brier in 1980. Brier still holds the home run and RBI records for Rowan County American Legion. When Brier was inducted into the Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Fame in 2012, he invited Norris. That’s how much that award meant to him.

Tim Kirk, a star headed to UNC, was the first two-time winner of the award in 1982 and 1983.

Changes came in the early 1980s when Eric Norris got a call explaining the surprising news that administrators didn’t want the Norris Award to be given out at the school banquet anymore.

The reason? It was too nice and was overshadowing smaller plaques being handed out for other sports.

It was Kirk’s parents who suggested that Norris make the award a countywide thing. Norris went to the Salisbury Post, and Horace Billings and Ed Dupree embraced the idea. The Post always honored a county player of the year. Now they would have a nice trophy to give the winner.

Hornets Jerry Page and Kris Huffman still won in 1983 and 1984, respectively, but in 1985, the first Norris Award winner not from Salisbury High was honored — East Rowan catcher Chris Cauble, who is now in the Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Fame after an incredible coaching career at West Rowan and Carson. Cauble coached many Norris Award winners, including two-time winner Owen White. Cauble also coached 2006 award winner Brett Hatley, who is now Ailshie’s head coach at East Rowan.

Materials, some of them imported, have gotten increasingly expensive. Throw in inflation, and the cost of a Norris Award now is about five times now what it was in 1978. The Norris family has never complained about that, even in the four years (1995, 2007, 2010, 2018) when there were co-winners and two trophies were needed.

There are many wonderful Norris stories.

In a better world, North Rowan pitcher Patrick Snider might have competed for the Mark Norris Memorial Award in 2010, but the courageous teen instead was fighting a losing struggle with cancer. Snider got a visit from Sandy Moore, the North Rowan hurler who was co-winner of the Mark Norris Memorial Award in 1995. Moore quietly presented his award to Snider, and there’s probably no gesture that could’ve meant more to either of them.

Eric Norris has tried to keep track of all of the winners over the years. He’s celebrated their accomplishments in baseball and after baseball, as they’ve raised families.

All award winners become part of the extended family for the Norrises. They welcomed all the Ailshies with open arms.

He obviously could repeat next season even with stiff competition. West Rowan will have three All-State players returning in 2026.

“We’re extremely proud that fine people have continued to win the award every year, and not just fine  ball players,” Norris said. “All things considered, the cost of these awards has been small indeed. After 48 years, my brother is remembered in a very positive way because of this award.”