It was inconspicuous trespassing, or breaking and entering, unhidden in plain daylight and manipulated by boys who simply wanted to play a game. “You’d get a small kid to climb up the rail in the back and go through the bathroom window, because it was always unlocked, then they’d open the door for us. I’d pay him a dollar to let us in. It was easy,” says instigator Tareyton ‘Zip’ Stowe. “That’s the only way we could play, because we didn’t have access to anything else.” The police would merely ask the boys to leave. “We never got arrested or anything like that,” Stowe says. The prize behind the door?

Basketball courts, in a tiny Mount Holly gym dubbed the Cracker Box. “That’s what we grew up with,” says Stowe, 70, who gained his nickname in ninth grade because of his speed. “All kids should have a place to play. In a small town, I got to be the motivator.” For more than four decades, Stowe dedicated himself to assuring children in Gaston County had that place. As a student at Mount Holly High School, then newly opened East Gaston his senior year, Stowe volunteered at the basketball gym, to provide a positive atmosphere for youth in the afternoons. In summer, he worked for the Mount Holly Recreation Department, which led to a career with recreation departments throughout the area – in Hickory, Gastonia, Lowell and Belmont – before retiring last year. He also is a former assistant football and basketball coach with Holbrook High School in Gastonia.

For his devotion to enriching people’s lives through sports and recreation, Stowe is being honored with the 2026 Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame Community Spirit Award. “I’m a low-key person, so all I can say is it’s an honor,” Stowe says. “It’s great. It’s great.” In retrospect, Stowe’s introduction to sport was the preamble to his career. “I was in a situation where I didn’t have a place to play. It’s the same concept. I had someone who took me in when I was very young, and he showed me basketball,” he says. “I was not a really, really good player. I was a young kid, and he taught me to play, and I found out I could be pretty good at it. He dated a girl next to where I lived at, and he loved basketball and he would pick me up.” His person was Ron Leeper, who in 1979 became one of the first Black members elected to the Charlotte City Council.

At the end of Stowe’s junior and senior years in high school, he’d collected awards for leading rebounder, leading scorer, All-District and co-Conference Player of the Year. He was Most Valuable Player his junior year at Mount Holly High and graduated from East Gaston in 1974 with a ticket to Western Carolina University. “They came around, and they had a basketball camp that the ACC used to run, and the only thing I could afford was the day camp, and it was $50 a week,” Stowe says, “and next thing I know, they’re asking me to go to school at Western. I was a junior then. At East Gaston, we didn’t get the headlines because schools like Ashbrook and South Point and Hunter Huss, they were 4A.

Ashbrook had James Worthy, but he was younger than us (Class of 1979), and Huss had Sleepy Floyd (Class of 1979). I played shooting guard. I think I was decent.” He also had someone to, literally, look up to. Shelby native David Thompson would visit East Gaston, “And he could touch the top of the backboard. He had a high vertical jump, and so did I, so I ended up practicing to emulate his game,” Stowe says. “I’m 6-3 and he was about 6-5.” Stowe graduated from Western with a Bachelor of Science in Parks and Recreation and went to work. He joined the Mount Holly Recreation Department and received a special service award for leadership and commitment to the program. He received a citation from the City of Mount Holly, the city council and mayor for exceptional service.

In 1997, he was awarded a special citation from the North Carolina Recreation and Park Society for exceptional service through the medium of recreation. And he was elected to serve as chairman of the North Carolina Recreation and Park Society Region 7, which covers 17 counties including Gaston. Stowe also helped rec league players explore the possibility of attending college, players who without him wouldn’t have the chance. McKenney Chevrolet in Gastonia loaned Stowe a car, and he’d take his athletes to Western.

“I took one kid, and he got a full scholarship in track. Some went to other schools, like Appalachian, but they got to see Western and learn what they needed to do to get recruited,” Stowe says. “I was blessed to have that vehicle. All they said was, just put gas in it.” Stowe met his wife, Marie, at Western. She works for Hospice now, and they have three children: Sheree, a graphic designer; Tiffany, a trauma nurse who is furthering her medical training at Duke; and Darren, 19, who plays basketball at Combine Academy, a private school in Lincolnton known for college preparatory classes and professional sports performance training, with an emphasis on basketball. “They travel around the country playing, so that’s what I’m doing in my retirement time. I travel with them,” Stowe says. “Darren can dunk on me now, so I have to keep my game up. We don’t have any kids in our neighborhood, so I have to be in shape to play him. I can still touch the rim.”