As an outfielder and catcher for the Atlantic Christian (now Barton) College baseball team, Chuck Finklea produced numerous clutch hits and made many strong defensive plays in helping the Bulldogs find success on the field in the mid-1970s.

However, his most enduring contributions have been the countless pitches he has made on behalf of the college as a distinguished alumnus, a leader of Barton’s athletic fundraising organization, the Bulldog Club, and a long-time member of the Barton College Board of Trustees.

In 1998, Finklea received the college’s Alumni Achievement Award, and in 2003 was recognized with the institution’s highest honor for alumni, the Distinguished Alumni Award.

He is currently in his 23rd year of service on the board of trustees, where he has chaired several committees, including the $21 million Centennial Campaign.

In 2005, he was honored with the Bulldog Club Award for his involvement in athletic fundraising, including the building of facilities at Nixon Field to support future generations of baseball players like himself.

“I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity – starting with the alumni board and then moving up to the board of trustees – to become interwoven with how the school operates and become a part of it,” Finklea said. “I’m so lucky that I’ve been able to give back.”

Robin Rose, a Barton hall-of-famer himself and former teammate, described Finklea’s contributions to Barton as “astronomical.”

“Chuck has been such a friend to the college, more so than anyone else I know or combination of people I know,” Rose said. “It’s been incredible.”

Finklea was born in Sumter, S.C., but grew up in Farmville, N.C., where he became a four-sport athlete at Farmville Central High School, competing in football, baseball, tennis and wrestling.

He entertained the idea of following in his dad’s footsteps and attending Clemson University, but he wanted to continue playing baseball, and knew he would not see the field for the Tigers, an NCAA Division I power.

“I knew some people from my high school who were attending Atlantic Christian, and one thing led to another,” Finklea said. “I had talked to the former coach, who had seen me play American Legion ball, but nothing materialized. I basically just went there and started playing, eventually getting a partial scholarship.”

The teams on which Finklea played were generally good but not outstanding.

“We had some great individual players, we just didn’t have a lot of pitching depth,” he said. “We would have maybe one or two really good pitchers. Jerry Hobgood was a great pitcher for us. We knew when Jerry pitched, we would have a chance to win. But we didn’t have any depth. When we gave the starter the ball, we expected him to go nine innings.”

Still, Finklea thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

“The camaraderie of the team was phenomenal,” he said. “A lot of the guys today are still lifelong friends.”

The joy Finklea had playing baseball was noted by one of those great individual players he mentioned, and became his first long-term contribution to the school, even if he wasn’t aware of it at the time.

In his own Barton Athletic Hall of Fame profile, Keith Stutts noted that his Louisburg team had faced Atlantic Christian during his second season with the junior college, and he had seen that camaraderie first-hand.

“AC was beating us,” Stutts was quoted in the profile. “They were having a big time in the dugout with players like Chuck Finklea and Will Flowers, who we knew. Robin (also a teammate at Louisburg) and I talked about it and decided that we wanted to stick together, go to AC and see if we could help take that program to the next level.”

The addition of Stutts and Rose set the stage for Atlantic Christian to claim an NAIA District 29 title in 1977.

Rose was inducted into the Barton Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003, followed by Flowers in 2009 and Stutts in 2011. Now Finklea will join that group.

“I’m speechless from that standpoint,” Finklea said. “I’m so honored to join them and be a part of it. All three of them remain great friends today. That’s that camaraderie that we had. … There’s so many other people who need to be honored for this besides me, and I am so humbled to have received this award.”

“Chuck has been such a friend to the college since the time that he started there as a freshman,” Rose said. “Moving forward, he still is, and will continue to be. He’s a well-deserved addition to the hall of fame.”

Asked if there were signs during his playing days that Finklea would take such a large role in the future of the college, Rose said “you knew wherever he was going to land, he was going to land in the right spot because of who he was and how he conducted himself.”

“Chuck was solid, not only on the field but away from it as well,” Rose said. “That’s what makes him Chuck. You could always count on Chuck. When you have people who you know you can count on, that’s a great feeling. He carried that over into everyday life.”