Wiles

BEALLSVILLE — Dave Wiles spent part of this past Thursday evening at the Moundsville Wal-Mart. Not because he needed any odds and ends, but because a young man he knows was in need.

“The kids at the school, they’re decorating plates for Veterans Day and he needed a picture of me to put in it,” he explained.

Trips to Marshall County aren’t short jogs for those who live in Beallsville. Wiles didn’t care. The sixth-grader needed something so he felt it his duty to fill that need.

Filling the errand was just another in a long line of contributions Wiles has made for the youth of Beallsville, his hometown and the place he graduated from high school in 1984.

But Wiles simply isn’t just a Beallsville guy. He “bleeds blue.”

“Beallsville, to me, it’s home,” he said, his voice filled with emotion. “The people here, it’s just like, the atmosphere, you can’t explain it. It’s one of those communities where everyone knows everyone.

“The sense of pride that people take in the community is amazing. It’s an amazing place to live”

Folks would be hard-pressed to find a bigger booster of the town than Wiles who, by his own admission, would do just about anything for his community, or his country.

An Army veteran, Wiles spent “27 years and change” in the service, serving in a plethora of theaters, including Desert Storm and Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti. Through it all, his small Monroe County hometown was never far from his heart.

“I’m so proud of my town,” he said. “The support of the people there when you’re deployed is overwhelming.”

Wiles has returned that support ten fold in the form of coaching, painting the football field, taking care of the high school’s baseball and softball fields, and even tutoring the junior high football players he coaches.

“I paint the field and people are always stopping down to tell me what a nice job I’m doing and how nice it looks,” Wiles said. “The sense of community and the pride the community has is just like electricity to me.”

Wiles was sparked by his own coach Dave Caldwell, who enjoyed a Hall of Fame run as Blue Devils football coach. Caldwell and Rusty Lucas, who Wiles now coaches under, were, among others, mentors in the area of giving back.

“I can’t say enough about him,” Wiles said of Caldwell. “He’s more than a coach to me. He’s like a brother. He’s always been there for me, and he still is today.”

Delmas Moore, longtime athletic director at Beallsville, is another person who’s driven Wiles to pay it forward with his actions. For him, it’s about passing life lessons from generation to generation.

“Delmas’ dad was my bus driver when I was a boy on the ridge,” Wiles recalled.

And was during those days as a boy where Wiles learned what was really important.

“It’s more than just about football,” he said. “One of the things I got from Dave was it’s faith, family and football. Be strong in my faith and my family is Beallsville.

“My life revolves around Beallsville and if it wasn’t for being here I don’t know what I’d do with my life. I think that’s what drives me — a sense of community and the pride in my community and the people here and the kids. It’s all wrapped into one. It’s not just one person. It’s everybody.”

Wiles have three sons of his own, one who graduated from nearby River and two who received diplomas from Beallsville. But he has many other “kids” now, ones he monitors every day — on and off the field.

Wiles keeps tabs on the grades of his junior high players. For those that aren’t doing as well in the classroom, Wiles will meet with them at school, perhaps, three times a week.

“It’s more than tutoring,” he said. “We talk about life. We talk about grades. I’m trying to teach these kids how to help themselves, how to be respectful and teach them about life.”

In the end, Wiles wants the youth of Beallsville to be successful and give back to continue the cycle of giving.

“I do the things I do because I love these kids like they’re my own children and I do it for the community,” he said. “But foremost, I do everything I do for those kids at the school. There’s not one of those kids that I wouldn’t lay down my life for.

“I love those kids that much. That’s why I do the things I do.”

If you know of someone in sports in the Ohio Valley whom I could feature as an Ohio Valley Unsung Hero, drop me a line at rthorp@timesleaderonline.com or via Twitter @RickThorp1