EDDIE MOBLEY ONEIDA BAPTIST INSTITUTE
In 1948-49 Oneida Baptist Institute’s Mountaineers (in Clay County)basketball team had gone 12-16 before entering the 49th District Tournament held that year at McKee. The Mountaineers had in their District Clay County, Tyner, Annville Institute and McKee. Clay County, a perennial favorite, entered at 15-14 and matched up with OBI in the first round. In a squeaker OBI came out victorious, 37-36. They next knocked off Tyner 35-27 and in the final the Mountaineers defeated Annville Institute 63-34, claiming the District Tournament championship. In the Regional Tournament the Mountaineers did not last long, succumbing to Hall 62-55 in the first round.
That OBI team must have gotten some recognition though their overall record probably did not show it, because at the end of the following season of 1949-50 listed on the All State 2nd Team was OBI’s Eddie Mobley.( Usually a player has a great season but for some reason or other is not listed among the elite so he grabs on to that list the next season after a crowded field has moved on. That is just an observation.) That came in the same year as the great Frank Selvy of Corbin being named to the 1st Team as well as Jim Wells of Clark County, Dickie Prater of Pikeville, Dan Schwartz of Owingsville, Albert White Jr. of Meade Memorial-all of the 1st Team selections as well as Linville Puckett of Clark County and Mobley of OBI named to the 2nd Team. A pretty good list of talent!
That 1949-50 season for OBI ended up at 22-7 under Coach Gilbert Samples, a much better record than the previous year. This year they played in the 49th District and that tournament was held at Manchester. After defeating McKee by 17 and Tyner by 40 points, the Mountaineers fell to Clay County 51-47 in that District Tourney championship game. In the 13th Regional Tournament OBI defeated Cumberland by three points and Clay County by three this time but fell in that championship game to Frank Selvy -led Corbin 58-45. That victory for Corbin came after a 20-7 third quarter barrage. Not going down so easily was Mobley, however. In the fourth quarter he scored 11 points of his game high 22 all in just those last eight minutes. Corbin’s All State Honorable Mention picks Barton and Roy Kidd (a great high school athlete)both made the All Regional Tournament team along with Selvey, as did OBI”s Mobley and teammate R. Baker. That ended the OBI career for the senior Eddie Mobley.
Mobley went on to play basketball for Ellis Johnson at Morehead and was listed as one of Morehead’s tallest players at 6’4” and played center.. In late January of 1952 he was leading Morehead scorers with an average of over 16 ppg. Talk was that Coach Ellis Johnson had thoughts of moving him to forward to make room for another highly regarded player at center. The next season he sat out a few weeks with an injured hip in early December. Mobley transferred to Union College to begin the 1953-54 season.
