ToquiNotes: Devastating Few Weeks of Loss as Area Sees Several Giants in Prep Sports, Teaching Pass
By Jeff Toquinto on March 22, 2025
There is an old wives’ tale that death arrives in related groups of three. In the last couple of weeks, it proved to be the case – plus one.
In a relatively brief time period, three individuals who had an enormous influence on students in general and involvement in high school sports in particular, all passed within days of one another. And then, this past week, last Saturday, March 15 to be exact, another individual passed away with deep coaching ties to Bridgeport High School and decades-long ties to education.
Some of the names you will know. Some you may not. All of them had their hearts in the right place when it came to their chosen professions, and we are all better off for it.
The individuals who recently died include Neil Messenger, Mark Loudin, Cliff Nichols, and Bob Cline. For the thousands who generally read this weekly blog, I would bet you or someone you know was either impacted by one of them, knew of them, or heard good things about them.
I’ll start with the individual who was still prominently involved in the local community at his passing. Neil Messenger has been around
sports for as long as I have been writing, which goes back to 1986. He was a fixture at events at South Harrison, and a great person to talk to, when I was a pup writer covering sports in Harrison County.
sports for as long as I have been writing, which goes back to 1986. He was a fixture at events at South Harrison, and a great person to talk to, when I was a pup writer covering sports in Harrison County.
That is where I met him. Like all who meet him, we have been friends ever since.
Neil was about kids. He coached volleyball at Washington Irving Middle School. He coached in softball at WI and Robert C. Byrd High School and helped with the Hilltoppers on the basketball front as well.
For 15 years, including his most recent ones, he was a volleyball official. If there was anyone with the temperament to handle being a prep sports official, it was Neil Messneger.
Want to fathom how many youths he influenced over those decades that were not his own flesh and blood? It is safely in the thousands, and it would be hard to find one to say a bad word about one of the kindest souls who was in our area orbit.
As for Mark Loudin, he was another person I met early in my writing career. Although he was primarily a meteorologist, reporter, and occasional anchor for WDTV, he would delve into high school sports with his good friend David Stingo.
In the pre-internet era, competition among media outlets involving prep sports and college sports coverage got some involved in the business hot under the collar. Mark Loudin was not one of the guys that made anyone hot under the collar.
In fact, both Loudin and Stingo – who I intimately tie together due to the origins of meeting them both in the same field at the same time – 
were always accommodating and friendly. When Stingo gave birth to the landmark show still in place today, the 5th Quarter, Loudin was often along for the ride and seriously contributing. Loudin’s ability to do weather, sports, news, or anything else was part of a person adaptable and friendly that translated face to face and translated over the television.
were always accommodating and friendly. When Stingo gave birth to the landmark show still in place today, the 5th Quarter, Loudin was often along for the ride and seriously contributing. Loudin’s ability to do weather, sports, news, or anything else was part of a person adaptable and friendly that translated face to face and translated over the television.
Eventually, Loudin would leave the profession and work at Glenville State. To no one’s surprise, he was beloved there working with students when he ended up in the classroom, and he was beloved by the college and Gilmer County community.
I have not seen him since his time at Glenville but would occasionally interact with him via social media. His final job was at the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, which is part of Ohio University in Athens.
Somehow, this quirky weather guy once again found himself in the classroom. Not a man of medicine, but a man of knowledge who, to again no one’s surprise, became a treasure on campus. Stingo told me he visited his classroom setting a few years back as a surprise and found something not too stunning – a room of young adults thrilled to be in Loudin’s presence. Looking back, we were all fortunate to be there.
As for Cliff Nichols, he was there, too, when I first got started in the journalism world. He was a writer for the Times-West Virginian, then known as the Fairmont Times. While about 14 years older than myself and already established, Cliff Nichols was never full of himself and was one of the first folks from out of Harrison County in the sports writing world that I got to know.
The best part? Cliff was always helpful. He not only answered questions I had, which were probably too many, but was quick to point me in the right direction in those very first few years when I needed someone to point me in the right direction whether at East-West Stadium or the former Charleston Civic Center.
Cliff’s work was solid across the board. If you played sports in the late 1980s, 1990s, or even in the 2000s in North Central West Virginia, chances are good, Cliff Nichols wrote about you. If you were really good, chances are even better, he talked to you. And there was 100 percent chance that whatever he wrote was accurate.
Need proof? He is a member of the West Virginia Sports Writers Hall of Fame. My colleague Chris Johnson is also a member after decades of service so that tells me the level one needs to reach to get there.
The best thing I can say about Cliff is that he was more than just on point writing about thousands of young athletes, as well as plenty of ones at West Virginia University. He was on point as a person.
Finally, after talking to several of my peers regarding the passing of so many folks strongly associated with sports in the area and that it came in a group of three, I happened upon the obituary page for Ford Funeral Home and saw “Robert Henderson Cline, Jr.” I paused, thought the name sounded familiar and the photo looked familiar.
A few paragraphs in, number four was on the list. It was Bob Cline, or Coach Cline, as I called him back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he was coaching a few pretty talented Bridgeport girls’ basketball teams that featured Stephanie Hall, Teresa Liebig, and Sherri McDaniel.
Of those who had passed, it was Cline that I had been away from in any capacity the longest – it had been at least 30 years, but I still remembered him. Always polite, always available, and to the best of my recollection, was not the type of coach screaming at officials or belittling the players.
The obituary, however, showed me the impact beyond coaching, which he did at BHS in track and in other sports at other schools. Bob Cline taught for 38 years in the classroom or as a counselor. Add the number of students he dealt with as Coach Cline or Mr. Cline, and it could easily be in the five figure-range.
Bob Cline was also a veteran. He was a musician. And was a man of many talents. None of these things I knew.
One thing I do know about Bob Cline, Cliff Nichols, Mark Loudin, and Neil Messenger are that their lives were filled with accomplishment and respect. They could have done just about anything they wanted.
What they chose to be first, were good men. That is no old wives’ tale. That is their epitaph.
Rest in peace gentlemen. Your work here is done.
Editor's Note: Top photo of Neil Messenger, courtesy of Randall Jett, The Doddridge Independent, while Mark Loudin, on the left, is shown with David Stingo on the set during the early period of The Fifth Quarter in the second photo courtesy of David Stingo. In the third photo is long-time journalist Cliff Nichols.Below, Coach Bob Cline is shown standing, far left, in this photo of the 1990 BHS girls basketball team courtesy of Teresa (Liebig) Lunsford.
