Joel Swope

  Joel Swope, a native of Snake Spring Valley, grew up playing ball. He played little league in Everett and by the age of 14 he was playing in the adult fast pitch Bedford County Rural League. The following year he started playing in the Independent Softball League, now the Schellsburg Softball League. He and fellow Snake Springer, Bedford County Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Dan England, soon were recognized as two of the best fast pitch players, not only in Bedford County, but in the tri-state area.

   Joel participated in football, wrestling, and baseball at Bedford High School, graduating in 1970. He played baseball at Allegany Community College and once won two games in one day as a pitcher. He received the Allegany Community College Major Honors Athletic Award for baseball in 1975.

   While attending ACC Joel played fast pitch softball, playing in four different leagues for several years (over 100 games a year). He was selected as an ISL All-Star for five consecutive years (1970-74). His best year in the ISL was 1974 when he hit .462 with 14 home runs and 51 RBIs. This was in an era when the ISL had great pitching and the balls and bats were dead compared to later years.


   After the 1973 playoffs, Swope went to California to play fast pitch in one of the best leagues in the country. He did well, but returned home just in time for the first day of turkey season. Joel loved to hunt turkey and deer.

   In 1974, while playing for Yoder’s of Cumberland in a tournament at Niagara Falls, one of the best tournaments on the East Coast, he hit game winning home runs in Yoder’s last at bat in all four games to win the tournament.

   In a 1974 playoff game at the Green, Joel’s coach Bill Creps recalls, “Joel swung and missed a pitch by at least a foot and then hit the next pitch into the Bedford Gazette building that was being built and the roof was not on yet. This was one of the longest home runs that I have ever seen. Joel was one of the few hitters that I have coached that could swing and miss a pitch that he was fooled on and then come back and hit the same pitch. He always said if fooled on a pitch and less then two strikes, swing to miss it.”

   Joel attended High Point College in North Carolina 1976-1978. In 1977 he hit .373 with 13 home runs and 44 RBIs and was all conference and Honorable Mention All-American. He was an assistant coach at High Point in 1978.

   In 1979, Joel returned to Bedford and revived the Bedford American Legion Baseball program after an absence of 15 years. He managed the team for three years until his death.

   In 1979, Joel also resumed his softball career. He was again selected as an All-Star in 1979 and 1980.

   Joel helped coach the Bedford elementary, junior high, and varsity wrestling programs those years he was not in college at High Point. Junior high coach John Topper made these comments about Joel after his death, “I can honestly say that Swope knew how to teach kids techniques as good as any young coach around. He had a way about him, a special “knack” for breaking down a move step by step, both on the resilite and at the plate. I relied on Joel for so many things when we coached together.”

   Topper continued, “Joel knew our competition inside and out and could scout a team as accurately and critically as anybody outside of Bill Creps. I always felt Bill Creps was a “walking statistic book” (and still do) but Joel ran a mighty close second in that coaching category, that is for sure.”

   “When scouting opponents, Joel would see things that others did not pick up on.” said Creps. If he would have lived longer, both Creps and Topper agree, he would have been recognized as a great coach. He would still be teaching young athletes how to hit, playing fast pitch softball, coaching wrestling, and hunting turkeys and deer.

   Joel passed away in February 1982 from melanoma cancer at the age of 29.



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Class of 2011
Bedford County Sports Hall of Fame
Bedford County, Pennsylvania
Class of 2011
Class of 2011

Bedford County Sports
Hall of Fame