![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/IMG_7305.jpg\")
<\/a>Hines is a 1972 graduate of Shelby High and has lived in Shelby, N.C., his whole life. He has been living and breathing sports since he was born. He was also an umpire for 15 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played basketball, baseball and softball growing up and I have never gotten away from it,\u201d said Hines. \u201cI\u2019ve been going to games a long time and I go to all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has been attending Gardner-Webb sports games for 40 years. \u00a0He calls himself a \u201csports junkie.\u201d Back in 2013, he was awarded Cleveland County\u2019s Fan of the Year.<\/p>\n
Hines said, \u201cIt was something I had never been recognized for, it was good.\u201d The Cleveland County Fellowship of Christian Athletes awarded Hines and others at a ceremony at Shelby City Park.<\/p>\n
On the city of Shelby\u2019s website it states, \u201cAdded in 1968, this award, sponsored by radio station WOHS, goes to the person selected by the Award’s Committee as having been Cleveland County’s<\/p>\n number one Sports Fan in the past year.\u201d<\/p>\n He loves to support local teams because they are a part of his community. \u201cThese are the guys that represent the community of Cleveland County, it helps them and the community,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen the squad is doing good, we\u2019re doing good.\u201d<\/p>\n Hines has a grandson, that plays baseball at Crest High School and he watches his games as well.<\/p>\n Hines said when he is not attending sports games he is watching them on television.<\/p>\n Rusty Stroupe, Gardner-Webb\u2019s head baseball coach, is very thankful for Hines\u2019 encouragement and support for the team.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can always count on Steve, he roots for us in the good times and the bad times,\u201d said Stroupe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jonelle Bobak \u201cPut a twist in it!\u201d \u201cJust hit the mitt!\u201d \u201cFinish it up right here!\u201d These are some of the chants that long-time fan Steve Hines yells out while attending Gardner-Webb baseball games. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>