Basketball Hall of Fame member Earl Lloyd once called once called Mark Cardwell “a father-figure”.
Former West Virginia State Athletic Director Daniel L. Ferguson described him as the “Gentleman Coach” shortly after Cardwell passed away on March 10, 1964.
Some members of the press nicknamed Cardwell “the Miracle Man of the Mountains”.
Whatever else he was called Mark Cardwell is a true coaching legend and a true Yellow Jacket.
After earning all-American honors in 1923 and 1924 as a halfback for the West Virginia State football team, Cardwell went on to coach at Clarksburg Kelly Miller High where, for the next 20 years, he led the school's football and basketball teams to numerous state titles.
He returned to Institute in 1945 as a professor and coached football, baseball, basketball, track and boxing.
West Virginia State competed in the Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which later changed its name to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association. The league featured 15 other Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the Eastern part of the country from Delaware to North Carolina.
His first Yellow Jacket boxing team captured the CIAA title and his first football team went undefeated on the way to capturing the CIAA crown.
Cardwell later coached the Yellow Jackets to another CIAA title in football in 1951. He finished his football coaching career at West Virginia State with a record of 69-58-15, a .543 winning percentage.
He also coached West Virginia State’s men’s basketball team.
In 1948, and 1949, the Yellow Jackets won the CIAA. His 1948 squad finished the season as the only unbeaten team in the country with a 30-0 record and was named national champions among historically black colleges.
Cardwell relied on a network of high school coaches and sportswriters from West Virginia and surrounding states to help him recruit top players to West Virginia State.
"He was like a father-figure to us, and we were like a family," Lloyd told the Charleston Gazette in 1999. "It seemed like eight or nine of us came in as freshmen, and each year we built it up together.”
“Those were some special people,” Lloyd said. “The place was special. It was a special time."
Lloyd played center for the 30-0 Yellow Jacket team in 1948. On Oct. 31, 1950, he would become the first African-American to ever play in an NBA game
His teammate, Bob Wilson, also played for Cardwell on state championship teams at Kelly Miller and would go on to play for the Milwaukee Hawks in the NBA in 1951.
After joining the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1955 Cardwell’s teams first made a major impact by winning the 1961 conference tournament. In 1963 they won the school’s first regular season WVIAC title.
He led the school’s basketball program for 19 years and finished with a career mark of 288-168.
His daughter, Betty Spencer, would later be a four year starter for both the school’s swim and women’s basketball teams. She continues to play a valuable role in the West Virginia State athletic programs through her work with the “W” Club.
