Kelly, Bostick, Hudson among Florence hall inductees

Tripp Kelly admits he isn’t great at giving speeches.

Luckily, he will have more than a month to get his ready.

Kelly, the former West Florence and South Carolina baseball standout, will be part of the 2012 inductees into the Florence Athletic Hall of Fame.

“Just being able to play in Florence and being nominated for this means a whole lot to me,” Kelly said. “It was a great time in high school and college playing around here.”

The rest of this year’s class includes Andy Bostick (basketball), Joe Lee Harley (football, baseball and basketball), Curtis Hudson (coach), Charles “Pap” Lewis (coach), Glenn McCrary (boxing), Allen Pate (football) and Troy “Webster” Williams (football). The class will be enshrined Jan. 13 at the Florence Civic Center.

“This is a ‘wow’ moment,” said Hudson, who coached at Wilson, Florence-Darlington Tech and with the Florence RedWolves. “I’m here because of the thousand young men that I had the privilege of coaching and hanging out with and all the people from the community that mentored me and helped me when I was coming up.”

One of the players Hudson coached against at Wilson was Kelly, who was a sophomore on West Florence’s Class 4A state championship team in 1995. He was an all-state selection that season and during his senior year.

Kelly was second on the state’s home run list when he graduated and went to South Carolina. With the Gamecocks, he belted 22 homers as a junior and was taken by the Oakland A’s in the 27th round of the Major League Baseball draft.

Kelly made it to high-level Class A before retiring and returning to Florence, where he runs Groucho’s and Little Caesars and stays in touch with many of his high school and college teammates.

“You remember stuff more from high school and college than you do from your professional days,” Kelly said. “It is a different feel playing the high school and college teams than when you start playing for money. It’s a lot more fun.”

Bostick played basketball at South Florence, where he was a two-time all-state selection. After high school, he went to Spartanburg Methodist for two seasons before going on to play at South Carolina in 1993.

Bostick averaged 12.4 points in his two years at USC and was named one of the school’s top 100 players in 2007. His favorite memory was being on the team which beat No. 3 Kentucky in 1994. The Wildcats’ team had future NBA players, including Walter McCarty, Tony Delk and Roderick Rhodes.

“I think all of their starters went on to play in the NBA, so that was a major accomplishment,” said Bostick, who played overseas after college. “Being selected to the hall also is special. It means somebody took the time to sit down and look at my career and think I was worth being selected to the hall of fame.”

Florence to host USA Volleyball event

The Florence Civic Center announced Tuesday it will host the Winter Bump volleyball tournament Jan. 14-16. The event will feature 56 volleyball teams from the Southeast.

The teams will consist of 13-15 year-old age groups.

Florence Civic Center chairman Peggy McLean estimates that the tournament will have an economic impact of $3 million for the area.

This is the first of two big athletic events the civic center will host during the winter. The South Carolina High School League will hold the lower state girls and boys basketball finals at the civic center in February.