{"id":1810,"date":"2026-05-12T09:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T09:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/?p=1810"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:05:15","slug":"collins-family-legacy-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/2026\/05\/12\/collins-family-legacy-moments\/","title":{"rendered":"Collins Continues Family Legacy with Marshall Baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Butler University batter swung too late. The umpire called \u201cStrike Three!\u201d for the 14th<\/sup> time that afternoon. On the pitcher\u2019s mound, Marshall sophomore Kenyon Collins hopped and clenched his right hand.<\/p>\n

A gentleman sitting in row three behind home plate was more exuberant, with a yell and a fist pump. Moments later, Rodney May stood with the rest of the crowd at Jack Cook Field and gave Collins a standing ovation. Final score: Marshall 3, Butler 1.<\/p>\n

May knew something that the Thundering Herd pitcher didn\u2019t: Collins had just broken his grandfather\u2019s record.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater on, I got a message from Pawpaw and a picture of the newspaper story,\u201d Collins said. \u201cHe\u2019s a humble guy and doesn\u2019t talk a lot about what he did at Marshall, but he sent me that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Image
Image of Rodney May with grandson Kenyon Collins as Jack Cook Field was being built.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The photo was of Marshall\u2019s Parthenon<\/em> from April of 1969, an article detailing sophomore Rodney May\u2019s school-record 13 strikeouts during a 5-1 win over West Virginia State.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me so proud to watch him compete,\u201d May said. \u201cI loved to pitch and had a lot of confidence in myself, but it\u2019s more exciting for me to watch him excel than when I was doing it myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the clich\u00e9, but records really are made to be broken. Even better when it\u2019s my grandson.\u201d<\/p>\n

The May\/Collins Marshall family tradition took root in the mid-1960s when May\u2019s Barboursville Pirates played against the Huntington High Pony Express and Coach Jack Cook.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy junior year, I threw two one-hitters against Huntington, but we lost both games,\u201d May said. \u201cThen Coach Cook took the Marshall job. He recruited me when I was a little left-hander who weighed 135 pounds and didn\u2019t throw hard enough to break an egg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before long, May was pitching against future Major Leaguers like Ohio University\u2019s Mike Schmidt, as Coach Cook built a competitive program despite limited resources \u2013 including a home field at St. Cloud Commons that seemed to be under water as often as not.<\/p>\n

\"Headshot
Rodney May pitched for the Herd in the 1969, 1970 and 1971 seasons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe river would flood, and people were catching fish in our outfield,\u201d May said. \u201cI watch a ground ball at the new park taking true hops and shake my head. You never got the same bounce twice at St. Cloud. Just be ready for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI played Babe Ruth games at St. Cloud,\u201d Collins said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe they played college baseball there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ballpark wasn\u2019t the only difference in college baseball 50-plus years ago. For instance, the idea of a \u201cpitch count\u201d wasn\u2019t yet around.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had no idea how many pitches we threw,\u201d May said. \u201cNobody kept track.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always started the first game of the series and I might throw 100 or 120 or however many pitches in a complete game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen Coach Cook would come up to me and say, \u2018How do you feel, Rodney May?\u2019 He never called me just Rodney or just May, it was always Rodney May. \u2018Can you give me a couple of batters in Game Two, Rodney May? Can you give me an inning tomorrow, Rodney May?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a senior in 1971, May set school records of eight wins, 72 strikeouts and 100 innings pitched. His earned run average was 2.34. Marshall played only 35 games that season \u2013 he was on the mound for more than one-third of the team\u2019s total innings.<\/p>\n

That season was played while the Marshall campus was mourning the loss of the football team the previous November.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so devastating to all of us to walk back on campus and those guys weren\u2019t here,\u201d May said. \u201cFunerals going on everywhere. I still get misty-eyed when I think about it. They were just kids. Ted Shoebridge played baseball with us for a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodney married Susie Morris, also a Marshall student. They both became Cabell County teachers and by 1976, he was the Barboursville High School baseball coach.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s the clich\u00e9, but records really are made to be broken. Even better when it\u2019s my grandson..<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t- Rodney May<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

They began raising a family \u2013 daughters Bonnie, Jennie and Katie, and son Lee.<\/p>\n

The May house was filled with sports and competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cSusie would tell me, \u2018Rodney May, you\u2019re two different people,\u2019\u201d May said. \u201cShe called me Rodney May just like Coach Cook did.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019d say \u2018You\u2019re always so cool and calm, until it\u2019s a competition.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true. If we\u2019re playing a board game, we all want to win. If we\u2019re playing Monopoly and you run out of cash, that\u2019s it. You\u2019re done. I\u2019m not loaning you money.\u201d<\/p>\n

The competitive spirit naturally led to the ball fields and courts.<\/p>\n

Lee went on to play college baseball at West Virginia State. Bonnie married former Marshall football player Will Edwards.<\/p>\n

Jennie became the first girls\u2019 basketball player to score 1,000-points at the new Cabell Midland High School after Barboursville and Milton consolidated. She married Tim Holmes, a former Kentucky football player. Their family includes Brennan, an all-state baseball player at Cabell Midland, who went on to play at Shepherd University, and Ryan, who became the captain of the Marshall soccer team for Coach Chris Grassie.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Katie married Curtis Collins, the first 1,000-point scorer in Cabell Midland boys\u2019 history, who went on to play college basketball at Rhema Bible College in Oklahoma. Their son Kenyon fit right in with his competitive aunts and uncles and cousins.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my earliest memories of wanting to win something is when we\u2019d get together at Easter, and we\u2019d do an egg toss,\u201d Collins said. \u201cIt was a big deal to win it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever we were together, we were playing something \u2013 basketball, football. We had epic whiffle ball games in Pawpaw\u2019s back yard. Even the cousins who didn\u2019t go play in college were good athletes and played high school sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins\u2019 childhood also included a strong dose of the Herd.\"Kenyon<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing I remember about Marshall is going to football games,\u201d he said. \u201cMainly what I remember is my family and my buddies hanging out and tailgating before the games, just having a good time, throwing a football around out in the parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

From early on, Rodney knew that the family had another athlete. Kenyon was a member of an Ona Little League team that won the West Virginia State Championship. His teammates included Michael Lunsford and Jared Nethercutt, sons of former Marshall football players Bubby Lunsford and Curt Nethercutt.<\/p>\n

Several members of that Ona team stayed together to help Cabell Midland win back-to-back state championships in 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n

The Knights\u2019 pitching coach was Rodney, who was enticed back to help after stepping away when Lee graduated from high school and went on to play in college. The return gave May the opportunity to coach three of his grandsons.<\/p>\n

\u201cPawpaw didn\u2019t push me as a pitcher when I was younger,\u201d Collins said. \u201cBut when he was my pitching coach in high school, that\u2019s when I learned from him. When I decided to take pitching seriously, he was right there for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

College recruiters came calling. Family and history won out.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Cook\u2019s daughter, Kim, brought me down here when they were still building the new park,\u201d said May. \u201cShe said, \u2018You and Kenyon come down here and see it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI walked in and thought, \u2018What a dream to play baseball here,\u2019 and Kenyon decided to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is home,\u201d Collins said. \u201cJack Cook Field is 15 minutes from my house.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of my family has Marshall ties \u2013 they went to school here or had kids who did. Everybody is a Marshall fan and supporter. It\u2019s really cool that Ryan and I have been able to be a part of the Marshall and Thundering Herd sports family.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Butler University batter swung too late. The umpire called \u201cStrike Three!\u201d for the 14th time that afternoon. On the pitcher\u2019s mound, Marshall sophomore Kenyon Collins hopped and clenched his right hand. A gentleman sitting in row three behind home plate was more exuberant, with a yell and a fist pump. Moments later, Rodney May […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":619,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/619"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1810"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1862,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions\/1862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}