Tim Kirk and Jerry Maye. Photo by Wayne Hinshaw, for the Salisbury Post.
By Mike London
Salisbury Post
CONOVER — Jerry Maye sits on a couch in Conover and counts down the days to Feb. 8 when his grandson, Drake Maye, will lead the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.
With his wife Rita sitting next to him, Jerry Maye talks about old-school baseball coaches Harvey Stratton and Joe Ferebee and glory days at Catawba’s Newman Park when his trusty left arm pumped hot fastballs and darting curves past opposing batters.
“My whole life has worked out wonderfully,” said an upbeat Maye, who at 83 is still sharp of wit and reasonably sound of body. “Everything good that ever happened to me, it all goes back to Catawba.”
His best memory at Newman Park was winning both games of a doubleheader against Ferebee’s Pfeiffer squad when the teams were battling for first place.
“I only had to pitch seven innings in the first game, so Coach Stratton asked me if I could start the second game,” Maye recalled. “We were ahead after four innings, and he asked if I could keep going. So I did.”
Stratton made college baseball enjoyable for Maye, and he’s always relished the experience.
Ferebee, whom Maye admired and respected, became one of his friends. Maye was there for a lot of Ferebee’s birthday celebrations, including the 100th in 2019. Ferebee, who passed in 2020, never forgot Maye’s ironman doubleheader performance against the Falcons.
Maye, who pitched for the Indians from 1962-65 and won 27 games, was an athlete. While baseball was the only sport he seriously pursued in college, he had a wonderful time leading his football and volleyball teams to intramural championships at Catawba.
Maye still owns a place in Catawba’s baseball record book. He fanned 318 batters, and those were short seasons in the 1960s compared to modern schedules. Maye held the program strikeout record for nearly 50 years before Nick Lomascolo broke it in 2013.
There was a game in March 1965 in which Maye pitched 10 innings against Western Carolina and struck out a program-record 18 batters. He still lost, 5-4, so he doesn’t like to talk about that one much.
There’s another record Maye set as a Catawba Indian that is unlikely to ever be broken. He pitched 33 complete games.
“People tell me that’s a record that will last,” Maye said. “Baseball has changed. Expectations of a starting pitcher have changed. Pitch six innings now, and you’ve done an outstanding job.”
Maye is immensely proud of the Catawba Indians cap that hangs in his closet, and he recently attended the program’s fundraising First Pitch Dinner in Salisbury. Catawba’s long-time head coach Jim Gantt maintains the program’s ties to its history and the greats of the past. Gantt has a friend and a fan in Maye.
Maye is also happy to report that the president of Catawba College, Dr. David Nelson, is almost as big a supporter of Drake Maye as he is.
“Dr. Nelson has a lot of ties to the Boston area and he’s a real Patriots fan,” Maye said. “I got an email from him today.”
There’s a Patriots cap perched on Maye’s head most days because 23-year-old Drake Maye, the youngest of his four grandsons, may be voted the NFL MVP, and he still has one very big game left to play.
Drake was a special college player at UNC, a guy who could throw four TD passes and run for a couple more. After his junior season, he was the third pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Drake was installed as the starting quarterback for the Patriots five games into the 2024 season when they clearly were going nowhere with a 1-4 record. Drake had his moments, showed unlimited potential, but the Patriots’ final record was 4-13, and Drake often took a beating from the press and the rabid fan base.
“Everyone talks about how tough the New York media can be, but Boston is right behind them,” Jerry said. “But a lot of things changed this season that helped Drake have the kind of second year in the league (the Patriots improved to 14-3) that he did. The new head coach (Mike Vrabel) is really tough but Drake says he’s equally tough on everyone, and he’s shown a lot of confidence in Drake. Drake’s got a different offensive coordinator this season (Josh McDaniels returned to New England) and he and Drake are on the same page. Another thing was New England signed Stefon Diggs. That gave Drake a veteran receiver who’s been in the league 10 years and he knows how to get open.”
Drake normally checks in with his grandparents on Wednesdays.
“New England’s off day is Tuesday, but Drake called us one Wednesday, and they won that weekend, so now it’s always Wednesdays when he calls,” Jerry said. “If I call him on Tuesday, he’ll tell me to call back on Wednesday.”
Jerry grew up as an all-round, 6-foot-2 athlete and graduated from Charlotte’s Garinger High School.
On the recommendation of East Meck coach Dick Williams, Stratton traveled to watch Maye pitch in a postseason all-star game in 1961 in Greenville. UNC and Wake Forest coaches also were in attendance and made their pitch to land Maye, but Stratton made the most generous offer. So Maye became a Catawba Indian.
Jerry’s favorite Catawba memory, even fonder than all those baseball games he won at Newman Park, was the day he saw Rita Hunsucker, a student from Conover, strolling out of the Catawba cafeteria. It was love at first sight. Jerry is sticking with the story that he knew right away that was the girl he was going to marry.
“Well, it only took one look for me, but it took me a little while to convince her that I was the right guy for her,” Jerry said. “And if you look at pictures of her and you look at pictures of me, you can see why she needed some convincing.”
Jerry played two seasons of pro ball in the Minnesota Twins organization. They sent him to St. Cloud, Minn., and he dominated in the summer of 1965 — 8-3 with a 1.94 ERA in 12 starts.
In 1966, he was pitching for Thomasville in the South Atlantic League. He was 5-0 for the Hi-Toms when he squared around to lay down a bunt and was hit by a pitch on the point of his pitching shoulder. That single pitch changed the trajectory of his playing career. He wasn’t the same after that. He finished that season with a 7-6 record and figured that his chances of making the major leagues were slim.
Jerry had a decision to make in 1967, report to Spring Training or take a solid job offer from Proctor & Gamble. He had married Rita and they had a son they had named Mark, so it was time to settle down. Jerry made the right decision. He worked for Proctor & Gamble for 32 years.
Jerry and Rita’s son grew to be 6-foot-4. Playing three sports for Independence High School, Mark Maye was one of the more celebrated athletes to come out of Charlotte in the 1980s. He was the starting quarterback for UNC in 1986 and 1987. He threw 20 touchdown passes for the Tar Heels. There was a game against Georgia Tech in which he threw for 406 yards, a crazy number for that era.
Mark’s pro career with the Tampa Bay Bucs was brief, but he went back to UNC, became a grad assistant and earned a master of business administration degree.
Mark Maye met Aimee Sockwell in Chapel Hill. She had been a superstar basketball player for West Charlotte and had been a Mecklenburg County Player of the Year. She had several Division I offers coming out of high school, but she chose to go to UNC as a regular student.
Mark and Aimee Maye had four strapping sons, Luke, Cole, Beau and Drake, all born between 1997 and 2002. There are tales of Aimee frying 36 eggs at a time in a giant skillet to feed them all. The Maye boys grew up in Huntersville.
If you follow ACC basketball or the Tar Heels, you know about 6-foot-8 Luke Maye. He was a star at Hough High School in Cornelius. He had offers from programs such as Gonzaga, but he wanted to go to UNC like his dad. He actually committed to UNC even when there were no scholarships left, although head coach Roy Williams promised he would give Luke one as soon as it was available. Williams made good on that promise.
Luke hit the last-second shot against Kentucky that sent UNC to the Final Four in 2017 and he became a national champion. Jerry Maye remembers jumping off the couch in Conover as his grandson took the fateful shot against Kentucky. Now 28, Luke plays pro ball in Japan.
Cole, a 6-foot-7 lefty pitcher, chose to focus on his grandfather’s sport. He was part of a national championship team for the Florida Gators the same year Luke was a national champ with the Tar Heels.
Beau Maye was a basketball standout at Hough, made the UNC team as a walk-on, became a graduate assistant for the Tar Heels and is now a basketball coach and math teacher at Hough.
Drake was 6-foot-2 in middle school, but he always was the youngest, shortest and smallest of the four brothers who were close enough in age to play driveway and backyard games of 2-on-2 football and basketball against each other. Drake took a beating from siblings who loved him but refused to take it easy on him. Jerry is certain that’s what made his youngest grandson the athlete and competitor that he is today.
“Drake talks about those games in interviews,” Jerry said. “Growing up, playing in those family games with and against his brothers, it was always, ‘Who gets Drake?’ because Drake’s team was going to have a handicap. That ‘Who gets Drake?’ stuff always ticked him off, made him play harder, made him fight for respect.”
Drake, who is 6-foot-4, 225 pounds now, also had something going for him that none of the other Mayes had.
“I think all of the Mayes had athletic skills that were pretty decent,” Jerry said. “But Drake was different in that he could run. Mayes aren’t known for being swift afoot, but Drake can go. In the game at Denver last week, on a third-and-6, he just outran the linebacker, No. 52 (Jonah Elliss), for a critical first down, one of the biggest plays of the game.”
Maye’s speed and mobility are elite for a QB, even an NFL QB. He’s rushed for 450 yards and four TDs, but his mobility is most useful as far as allowing him to extend plays and find a receiver. He can throw accurately and he can throw deep, attributes which give him a chance to be a franchise athlete for the Patriots for a long time. He has thrown for 4,304 yards and 31 touchdowns this season while completing a league-leading 72 percent of his passes.
Drake got married last June to the Ann Michael Hudson, the girl he’s dated since middle school.
Back in 2016, when he was a 13-year-old middle schooler, Drake and his father attended the Super Bowl. They were serious Carolina Panthers fans and headed to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, to watch the Panthers take on the Denver Broncos. Now, 10 years later, Drake returns to that same venue, hoping for a better outcome.
Drake’s wife, parents and brothers will be in California to support him, with Luke flying in from Japan for the game.
Jerry and Rita will be watching their grandson from Conover, hoping for the opportunity to jump up off the couch to celebrate a New England victory.
“We could go to the Super Bowl,” Jerry said. “We’ve had our bumps and bruises over the years, but we could do it. But we don’t do great in big crowds anymore, and it’s just a whole lot easier to watch from here.”
Jerry didn’t make a prediction on the game, but he does admit the Seattle Seahawks are a fine football team. While he will be the enemy on Feb. 8, Jerry is pleased that former Carolina Panthers QB Sam Darnold, much maligned during his time in Charlotte, has found success after being surrounded by a better team on the West Coast.
“I know Drake will be ready to compete,” Jerry said. “He’s relatively healthy right now, and he’s learned the most important thing an athlete can learn. He is able to put a mistake, a bad throw, even an interception, behind him. He can move on and execute on that next play.”
