For Dennis Blackmon, like everyone else who has been so selected, his induction into the Barton College Athletic Hall of Fame is a pinnacle moment in his life.
But in his case, it’s not even the most important event of the past week.
Last Saturday, he married his fiancée Sondie, whom he had met several years ago while living in Chicago. The couple took an abbreviated honeymoon so Blackmon could be back to be honored for achievements involving the other love of his life, baseball.
Several of his Barton teammates participated in the ceremony, which Blackmon says is entirely appropriate, given that those relationships are what he cherishes most about his four years as a Bulldog.
“I remember the friendships, the close-knit community of the school,” he said. “The baseball part was really good. It obviously worked out well for me, especially my junior year. But it’s those relationships that last with you. I wouldn’t be able to make it back to campus for any type of alumni event for two or three years in a row, and then I’d go to one and it was like I didn’t miss anything.”
Blackmon has felt a special connection with Barton ever since his first visit to campus. A three-time all-conference player at South Johnston High School, Blackmon had narrowed his recruiting list to three schools – Campbell University, Mount Olive College and Barton.
Campbell, he said, held out for a catcher with Division I measurables.
“It was me and another catcher locally, and he was a lot bigger than me as a senior in high school,” he said. “They thought he would pan out better. It ended up he didn’t over the course of two years.”
He went on a recruiting visit to Mount Olive and sat through an admissions session, but “I knew at lunch before I even got to the baseball field that I wasn’t going to go there. Just out of the respect for the coach there, I completed the visit, but I knew I wasn’t going there.”
He went through the same schedule at Barton – admissions session, lunch, visit to the baseball field – but left with a much different feeling about the school than he had with its rival down the road.
“The day that I actually went to Barton with my parents, we did the tour that morning through admissions, then coach ate lunch with us and took me out to the field,” Blackmon said. “I knew by lunch, too, that I was going to go to Barton. We had to work everything out – getting there and paying for school, all of that – but that was where I wanted to go.”
After a stellar summer following his senior year of high school, Division I programs like NC State and East Carolina University questioned his commitment to Barton, but Blackmon remained steadfast.
“Even if those guys would have recruited me early, I probably would not have gone there,” he said. “Academically, I did fairly well in school, but at a big college I don’t think I would have done well. The tight-knit nature of Barton was important. I knew I was going to go to a small school. Me sitting in a 300-person math or chemistry class, I don’t think I would have done well.”
He found Barton to be everything he had hoped. And Barton head coach Todd Wilkinson found the same in Blackmon.
“Dennis was coached by Pat Smith, who had sent me really good players for a long time,” Wilkinson said. “His word that ‘this is a really good kid and a really good player’ meant so much. I was so happy when I signed him, needing a catcher and knowing that this guy had a chance to be really good.
“He was so versatile. You could play him anywhere, and we did one day against North Carolina Wesleyan. We played him at all nine positions, which was a neat thing.”
Blackmon stepped on to campus and made an immediate impact, hitting .309 with eight home runs and 53 RBI in his freshman season. He was named Second Team All-Conference, and earned the Carolinas-Virginia Athletics Conference Tournament MVP award after leading the Bulldogs to the title.
After another solid campaign as a sophomore, he produced one of the best seasons in BC history as a junior, batting .426 with a school-record 24 home runs and 75 RBI in earning NCAA Division II Second Team All-American honors.
“After that, we all thought I was going to get drafted fairly high, and that I possibly wouldn’t even return for my senior year if I got drafted high enough,” Blackmon said. “The night before the draft, I talked with a scout for the Padres for about 45 minutes, and even the day of the draft up through the 30th round, I was talking to the Expos guy. But I just didn’t get drafted, so it was good to come back for my senior year.”
He completed his four years at Barton ranked second in the program’s NCAA Division II history in career home runs (44) and RBI (211), and he tied fellow 2016 Hall of Fame inductee Brock Godwin for games played in the Royal Blue and White with 211. In 2007, he was named to the All-Time CVAC Baseball Team.
Blackmon went on to two seasons of minor league baseball in the Independent Northern League, earning a spot in the 2007 Northern League All-Star Game and the attention of Baseball America, which ranked him its No. 5 independent leagues prospect.
He soon got the attention of the Boston Red Sox as well.
“That was an experience in itself, because it was during the World Series in 2007 when they won,” he said. “I was texting the guy who was in charge of handling free-agent signings while he was at the game in Boston at the World Series.”
He played a partial season in 2008 for the advanced-A Lancaster JetHawks of the California League, batting .286 with three homers and 17 RBI, but at age 25, was passed up for promotion by much younger prospects.
“The one guy I remember specifically that they brought up to take my spot, he made it to the majors two years later,” he said. “It was right. He was probably a better caliber player. It was one of those things. But I experienced something that a lot of guys don’t get to do.”
Today, he’s enjoying his life back in North Carolina – his now happily married life.
