David McClung attended the last Roanoke College football game in 1942 before the program was discontinued, and the first game this year when it was revived.
David “Red” McClung was 14 years old when he and some of his friends snuck in to watch the last Roanoke College football game of the season in 1942. Little did he know it would be 82 years before he’d see another one.
With World War II raging and boys leaving Roanoke College to go fight in Europe and the Pacific the college had a hard time fielding a team in 1943. The school decided to drop the team and most everyone expected it to return once the war was over, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t until 2023 that the college, under the guidance of new President Dr. Frank Shushok, Jr., decided to bring the sport back to the Salem school. It was decided to field a club team in 2024, then proceed with a full Old Dominion Athletic Conference schedule in ’25.
The first opponent for the new club team was the Hampden-Sydney jayvee team, and that piqued the interest of McClung, a 1951 graduate of Hampden-Sydney College and a former football player for the Tigers. McClung attended the game on September 8th at Salem Stadium, and there’s a good chance he was the only one in attendance who had also been at the last home game in 1942.
Red grew up in Salem and lived at 203 Chestnut Street, near where the current CVS drug store is now located. He has fond memories of that lot, as that’s where he and his friends played football as kids.
“That lot has a lot of history,” said McClung. “It was a cow lot for the McClung family, my grandfather lived on Union Street. When the circus came to town that lot is where they put their tent. I could look out my bedroom window and watch them putting up that tent. It was more fun to watch them put up the tent than to see the show.
“One year a big circus came to town and they had two elephants, most circuses didn’t have elephants in those days,” he recalled. “They came to town on Sunday night and put up the tent that night, and the elephants pulled on the lines for the poles that supported the tent. Then it started raining on Monday and rained all week. When they went to take the tent down at the end of the week the trucks were up to their axles in mud. They hooked up the elephants to tow the trucks out of the mud and you could hear the elephants grunting. I was probably eight or nine, and that was really something to see.”
The lot on Main and Chestnut would eventually be home to the Colonial Theatre, and David worked there to earn some money and watch movies for free. It would later be a grocery store before CVS moved in.
When young David and his friends weren’t at the circus they were likely to be playing football on that lot, and football was big in Salem back then. Imagine that!!
Legendary coach Pinkey Spruhan was the coach at Andrew Lewis High School and McClung and his friends aspired to play for the Wolverines. The high school team and the college team both played at a stadium that bordered Market Street, about the spot where the C. Homer Bast Center is now located.
“We enjoyed playing football and frequently attended the Roanoke College games,” said David. “The stadium had lights and the high school team would play on Friday night and the Roanoke games were usually on Saturday.
“Back in 1942 the war was beginning and we were just coming out of the depression, so there wasn’t a lot of money around,” he said. “The stadium had steel bleachers that backed up to Market Street and us ‘Townies” didn’t have any money, but we could climb steel bleachers.”
“Red,” nicknamed because of the red hair he still has, went on to play for the Andrew Lewis High School team and went both ways, as most players did in those days. He was a center on offense and a linebacker on defense and he was one of the faster players on the team. He was on the first team to play football at Salem Municipal Field in 1946 when the team moved their games from the Market Street RC stadium to the baseball facility now known as Billy Sample Field at Kiwanis Park.
“The first year we played there was my senior year,” said McClung. “Our first game was against Bedford and it had rained all week. The field didn’t drain well at all and there were puddles everywhere. We didn’t worry about getting hurt, we worried we would drown.”
The team equipment was much different in those days. McClung noted about half the team had plastic helmets and half had leather ones, but by the time he got to Hampden-Sydney they were all plastic. He never suffered a serious injury but chuckles about a time he took a shot to the groin, although it wasn’t so funny back then.
“When you get hit there you can’t die quick enough,” he recalled with a chuckle. “I was holding on to my &@!!$ and the cheerleaders were all leaning over the bench looking at me. Dr. Smiley came over to check on me and he said, ‘that’s right son, just hold ‘em in your hands.”
McClung recovered and was able to have a family, but before that he enrolled at Hampden-Sydney College and played football for the Tigers. He mostly played linebacker but on occasion was also used as a long snapper on offense. He’d always been a good center.
“When I was growing up most of the kids on Chestnut Street were bigger than I was, so they said if I wanted to play I had to be the center,” said McClung. “I wasn’t very big, but I was fast.”
After college David worked with the family business, McClung Lumber in Salem. His grandfather, Marshall, had started the business in 1913 and 111 years later it’s still going strong. McClung’s children still own the business but three local men run it, T.J. Stratton, Ryan Millard and John Andrews.
David, who lost his wife Margaret four years ago after 67 years of marriage, still lives in his home on Hollybrook Road in Salem. When he heard Roanoke was reviving football it brought back some memories, and he was particularly excited to learn the first game was against the Hampden-Sydney jayvees from his alma mater.
“I hadn’t been to Salem Stadium for a few years, I don’t walk as good as I used to and after I stand for about three minutes I have to sit down,” he said. “But I decided to go to the game and I tailgated with members of our family.”
Little did Red imagine the crowd that would show up for the game that day. Over 6,000 fans filled both sides of the stadium and covered the hill behind the south end zone. That was a far cry from when McClung attended the 1942 Maroon games.
“From what I remember they didn’t have great crowds, usually only about half the seats were full,” he said. “I didn’t expect the crowd to be as big as it was this year, I don’t think anyone did. It was a fabulous crowd.”
The McClung family couldn’t even find enough seats for all of them to sit together. Red found a spot on the home side at about the 30 yard line, but don’t let that fool you. All the McClungs were rooting for Hampden-Sydney.
“I sat by myself,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect from Roanoke and I had no idea what the Hampden-Sydney jayvee team would be like, but it turned out to be a game that almost anyone would be interested in.”
Red didn’t go to the next home game, but he’s planning on attending some games next year when the Maroons have a varsity team.
“I think I’ll go some more,” he said. “I was delighted when Roanoke College decided to have football again. It’s good for the college, it’s good for the ODAC and Salem has one of the best football stadiums in Division III. I think it’s going to be a great thing and I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.”
And he won’t have to wait another 82 years for a game.
