On a cloudy day in late April, Marie Bolles sat on a wooden bench in a quiet dugout at Don Davidson Park. She stared out at the ballfield before her. There were no players and no spectators in the stands, but she could hear chatter from another field. She looked down at the well-worn softball in her hands and smiled.
Her daughter, Betty Coats, joined her. The two had arrived early to watch one of Bolles’ great-great-granddaughters play on the next field and were waiting in the shade. It was a special day. The young girl would be playing on the neighboring field, named in honor of Bolles. She has been described as one of the best softball players ever to play in Fayetteville. The two women reminisced about the days when they, too, were part of the action.
“We sure have played a lot of ball, haven’t we, Moe-may.”
The sweet nickname Coats calls her mother makes them both laugh. At 94, Bolles has been known by many names. To the children at Don Davidson Park, she is Granny Bolles. To their parents and grandparents, she is a legend — a member of the Fayetteville Softball Hall of Fame.
Anyone who has been part of the softball community in Fayetteville and the surrounding area knows her name. People still talk about the way she used to pitch the ball with a high arc so that batters had a difficult time hitting it. She was also a threat when it was her turn to bat.
“She threw right-handed and caught the ball right-handed, but when it came to hitting the ball, she batted left-handed,” her daughter said. “She could place-hit the ball anywhere she wanted. I remember players on other teams saying they dreaded seeing her come up to bat.”
For decades, the two were a dynamic duo, traveling to tournaments together and playing league ball. Bolles started as Coats’ coach but later became her teammate. Then there were three. Coats’ daughter, Shelby Bolles Wilson, followed in their footsteps. Betty laughed as she recalled overhearing a man telling his friends to look at the three generations of players all on base at the same time.
Wilson and her family live in East Tennessee and were not able to make it to the game that day, but she spoke with love and gratitude during a phone interview as she recalled the impact her grandmother has had on her family.
“Our family would travel everywhere for softball games — even as far away as Myrtle Beach,” Wilson said. “The love of softball was passed down to my mother and was embedded in her genes. She became a coach herself. Even though she didn’t have a child or a grandchild on a team, she would still coach, simply for the love of coaching. She was keeping up the legacy.
Bolles played well into her 70s before retiring from active play, but she never gave up the game. She coached and guided from the sidelines, and she was there, looking after Skylan, Wilson’s daughter, when she was playing.
“My daughter, her great-granddaughter, went on to play in Huntsville at Oakwood University on a full-ride college scholarship,” Wilson said. “Unfortunately, Skylan had to quit playing because she severely injured her shoulder.”
There is a memento all three women hold dear — an old, yellowed Tempo monthly newsprint magazine published in August 1990 by Lakeway Publishers. Don Gill’s story about Bolles’ softball journey featured a photo of a young Wilson and Bolles, each holding a trophy. They were both chosen by their league as Fayetteville All-Stars for the 1990 summer games. Bolles was 58 years old at the time.
“I remember Ronny Boswell taking that picture,” she said. Bolles named several people who helped her in some way during her softball days. Sadly, many of those people have left us. One in particular is former Lincoln County Mayor Peggy Groce McDaniel Bevels, who died in 2022.
“Peggy worked hard to get that field named in my honor,” Bolles said. “She had to go to the governor’s office in Nashville four times to get the name changed. She worked hard to get it done. She should be the one with a field named in her honor.”
Bolles told story after story about the colorful people she met while playing ball.
“I’ll never forget going to Monteagle to play in a tournament,” she said. “They had a big field, and believe it or not, the players were wearing coveralls. These were corn-fed women. Every time they got up to bat, they knocked the ball over the fence. We should have just stayed home.”
Then there was the time she played another tough team in a tournament in Louisville, Kentucky.
“These were beer-drinking women, hard hitters, women who liked jumping in swimming pools,” she said with a hint of mischief. “One of them hit the ball to me so hard that it took the glove right off my hand and into the field.”
There was also a field in Lawrenceburg where the players had to pass horses and buggies on the road to get to the field. The field was so bad that it had to be bush-hogged before they could play.
Bolles’ love of softball started when she joined her first team at age 10. By age 14, she had joined a league. The first field she ever played on was across from the old Lincoln County Jail — the former site of the Stone Bridge Motel, and the current site of the Patrick Rehab-Wellness Center.
The field that holds her most treasured memories is Howell Field, where she met her husband, Bill Bolles. The couple married in 1951 and raised four daughters — Betty, Gwyn, Kay, and Hilda.
“I had three of the four become ball players,” Marie said. “Kay became a fisherman.”
Bolles played in numerous leagues over the years — the industrial league in Shelbyville, the summer league in Fayetteville, and the fall league in Hazel Green. She also played on several tournament teams.
Bolles was recorded in the 1990 Tempo article as saying the only way to get her off the ballfield would be for her health to decline.
“I remember playing in my 70s in an industrial league. I was pitching, and a line drive came my way and took the skin off my arm,” she said. “My husband told me I was going to get killed. That’s when I decided it was time I had better stop.”
According to her granddaughter, Bolles has been dealing with quite a few health problems, including a stroke she had three years ago. She has vision problems now, but they don’t stop her from enjoying life.
“She’s tough,” Wilson said, “very tough.”
Both Coats and Wilson are very proud of Bolles. They claim her influence molded them into the women they are today, and they are thankful her love of softball was passed down to them. That love has built memories they will cherish forever.
“Many people boast about their riches and gold,” Coats said. “But I am thankful for the memories in this old Tempo magazine. That’s my treasure.” GN
Don Davidson Park is located at 1701 Wilson Parkway in Fayetteville. The field named in honor of Marie Bolles is Field 6, located in the back of the park.
