Norman “Woody” Daly was a self-professed homeboy and farm boy when he enrolled at Atlantic Christian College in 1958. A few days after starting college, he was running laps in P.E. class when he was pulled aside by his teacher, Sam Coker, who was also the track coach. Four years later, he had re-written the school’s record books in the 100- and 220-yard dashes.
Fifty-two years later, he has again entered rarified air as a non-scholarship student-athlete honored with induction into the Barton College Athletic Hall of Fame.
As a freshman in 1958, Daly tied the 100-yard school record (track started at ACC/Barton in 1956) with a time of 10.3 seconds. Running on a “soggy grass track” that was chalked off on the Jaycee Field behind Fleming Stadium, Daly set school records as a sophomore in the 100 (9.9) and the 220 (22.8), prompting The Wilson Daily Times writer Bernie West to predict that Daly “could become one of the all-time athletic greats at Atlantic Christian.”
That season, Daly won his first eight 100-yard races before losing the ninth time on a false start. He went on to become the first ACC track athlete to win either a North State Conference or NAIA District 26 title that season, when he won the 100 and 220 at conference and was district champ in the 100 at 10.2. Daly battled a leg injury his junior season, but managed to repeat as North State Conference 100-yard champion. He red-shirted in 1961 because of an injury.
He closed out a great career as a senior in 1962 by breaking his own school records in the 100 (9.8) and 220 (21.65), setting the marks as he finished first and second, respectively, in the 100-yard and 220-yard dashes at districts. That year, he went undefeated in the 100 and 220 in all eight regular-season meets.
Not bad for a kid that came to college “with no expectations at all” after attending New Hope High School in Spring Bank, N.C. (just outside Goldsboro), a school that had no track team.
Running was a nice outlet for Daly, but he never strayed far from the farm. “I remember after the senior prom in high school, all the seniors went to the beach except me. I went back to the tobacco patch,” he said.
Daly, who earned a B.S. in Health and Physical Education and minored in Social Studies, taught history and coached at the high school level for 10 years after leaving ACC. He coached football and girls basketball at Colerain High School for one year before teaching and coaching indoor and outdoor track at Princess Anne and Bayside high schools in Northern Virginia for the next nine years.
For nearly 40 years, Daly has been farming in Colerain. He and Pat have two daughters, Julie and Michelle, and five grandchildren…who now have a Hall of Fame grandfather.
