By Ron Bush

Deputy Sports Editor

Three men will be inducted Saturday afternoon into the Blue Raider Hall of Fame at Middle Tennessee State University. Two of them are Brainerd High School graduates: baseball pitcher Gregg Cunnyngham and football running back Mike Moore.

Cunnyngham went from Brainerd to MTSU in 1965, nine years before Moore, and each graduated from the Murfreesboro school in four years. Each also was an Ohio Valley Conference player of the year before departing.

While Cunnyngham, now 60, returned to Chattanooga after a four-year professional baseball career and has been based in his hometown ever since, Moore said he has "lived in about 15 states" since leaving MTSU and trying to catch on with an NFL team. He was drafted by Miami.

His degree is in sociology, but he has held a variety of jobs, he said. He resides now in Nashville, where he recently had a hospital stay because of appendix problems.

"I wanted to see the country," said Moore, who has a 12-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son. "I really wanted to play college football somewhere out West, like UCLA, but I didn't get a scholarship offer."

Soon after his Brainerd graduation day, he was given a chance to replace a no-show at camp for the Tennessee high school all-star game in Murfreesboro. That player later arrived, but Moore was allowed to stay and the other team got to add a player as well, and Moore had an outstanding performance in the game.

Legend has it that he was signed by MTSU as a result of that showing, but he said this week that he actually signed the day before the game -- at the recommendation of a former Brainerd quarterback, Fred Rohrdanz, then at MTSU.

Moore went on to three 1,000-yard rushing seasons in his four years with the Blue Raiders, and his career total of 3,678 is second in school history. He holds school records for rushes in a game (38), a season (296) and a career (807), and he was a three-time first-team All-OVC selection. The OVC offensive player of the year in 1975, he was an All-American in '76.

Asked if he thought he should already be in the MTSU hall, Moore said he never thought about that honor until a reunion a couple of years ago, when some of his old teammates "started talking about making a push for me. Me, I was just glad to see those guys and get together again."

Cunnyngham similarly professed no feelings of being left out in previous inductions, although the Hall of Fame release describes his career statistics as "astonishing" and says he was "arguably the most dominating pitcher for the Blue Raiders" in their OVC years.

"'Arguably' is the key word there," Cunnyngham said with a laugh. "They have had some great baseball players and other athletes both before and after me, so I've never thought I should've been included. But I promise you, no one will be more appreciative of it."

Cunnyngham, who also played basketball at Brainerd, went 17-3 with an earned run average of 1.55 in his Blue Raiders career. He pitched seven shutouts and 13 complete games and went 9-0 in 1968, when MTSU was 23-9 and he won two games in the college division Mideast Regional.

One of his teammates was shortstop-pitcher Danny Sandlin, who was a multiple-sport star at Brainerd and is the godfather of Cunnyngham's son Charlie. They helped Brainerd win the state baseball championship in 1965.

Drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies and traded two years later to the Cleveland Indians, Cunnyngham was at the Class AAA level when arm trouble ended his career. At the suggestion of Hillis Layne, a former Lookouts and Washington Senators standout then scouting for the Senators, Cunnyngham went to work for the Ira Trivers men's clothing store in Chattanooga.

After nine years with Trivers, the last seven managing stores, Cunnyngham opened his own, Jonathan's of Chattanooga, in partnership with Bruce Baird. After they sold out to Loveman's, Baird opened a store with his name and Cunnyngham was national sales manager for Olan Mills for nine years. He then rejoined his old friend with Bruce Baird & Co. and now largely works with customers in their offices.

"I go to Atlanta, Knoxville, Nashville and Birmingham and all points in between," said Cunnyngham, an MTSU physical education major who minored in business.

He's a past president of both the Eastgate and Northgate merchants associations. Besides Charlie, who attended McCallie, he's the father of Amy (Baylor) and Ashley Cunnyngham (GPS), who competed against each other in sports. With wife Carol, he has two stepchildren, Phillip and Kellie.

E-mail Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com