02 Dec 2025 Fits like a glove
By Donna Lampkin Stephens
Eddie Glover of Conway has some advice for anyone wanting to live a long, healthy life:
Stay off the couch and get active.
Glover, 88, practices what he preaches. In 2023, he was inducted into the National Senior Softball Hall of Fame, following his induction into the Arkansas Softball Hall of Fame in 2002. His team, Billy’s Trophies & Awards, won the 2025 Conway Fall Senior Softball League in October. In that league, he competes with and against players more than 40 years his junior.
He remembered a back surgeon telling him once, “Look, you’re like a car that gets 200,000 miles, and you’ve got 195,000 on you now.”
“I have no back problems at all,” Glover said. “I go to the chiropractor every other week, and otherwise I just exercise.”
He plays golf several times a week and works out at the fitness center at Nutters Chapel Golf Club, does home exercises and rides his bicycle around his neighborhood.
But more than anything, there is softball. Besides local city and church leagues, he has played on teams that have won 11 national championships. He was named either MVP or to the All-Tournament Team in more than half of those.
“God has been nothing but good to me,” he said. “He’s blessed me so much.”
Debi Nabholz of Conway knows Glover from the golf course.
“Eddie Glover may be one of the most active 88-year-olds in town,” she said. “He is an absolute delight. I’ve gotten to know him out on the golf course but had no idea of the scope of his accomplishments.”
Glover grew up in the remote Prairie County community of Cross Road, four miles south of Hickory Plains, between Des Arc and Beebe.
“About all there was to do was play baseball,” he said. “I wanted to be a shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals.”
The ball field was across the road from the country store named Sport Glovers Grocery, where his family lived. As a boy, he went to school there with the other 11 students, plus the teacher. He graduated from Mabelvale High School in Little Rock in 1954 and then took a detour into bull riding for a few years. He graduated from Little Rock Junior College with a business administration degree and joined the Army National Guard full-time in 1955.
In 1957, he was part of the troops called up by Gov. Orval Faubus to block the Little Rock Nine from desegregating Little Rock Central High School.
“President Eisenhower put us all on active duty, and we got those kids in,” he said. “That was quite an experience.”
He served a total of 43 years, 8 months and 18 days, with his final five years spent on active duty. On May 31, 1999, he was discharged as a Chief Warrant Officer Five.
But softball was never far from his heart.
“My choir director at Central Assembly of God in Little Rock said to me one day, ‘I’m thinking about getting a slow-pitch softball team together; would you like to play?’ Well, he did, and I did,” Glover said. “I was 32, and little did I realize that 55 years later, I’d be standing before all these people getting this award (the National Senior Softball Hall of Fame).”
When he started, he could play any position.
“However, my main forte is pitching,” he said. “Being a pitcher, the main thing is to be able to spot the ball where you want it. At my age, I couldn’t play shortstop or anything like that now.”
He moved to Conway in 1992. His family — wife Debbie, a retired teacher and counselor; daughter Hannah; son Micah; and three grandchildren — have supported his softball career, attending induction banquets and embracing the family game.
“But they’ve got their own sports now,” he said. “Hannah went to (Arkansas) Tech and played some softball there. Micah played baseball until they started throwing curves and he got hit.”
Glover started playing senior travel softball at age 52 and competed year-round through this year. He continues to play league ball locally. His highlights are too many to list but include various World Series championships, MVP and all-tournament honors.
In 2021, Glover secured Jim Fulks of Maumelle to manage the LOTA (Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas) softball team, and they went on to win the Men’s 80 Major Division at the Senior Softball (SS) World Championship in Las Vegas, where he won all three games he pitched, including the championship game.
Last year, Glover played with the Kansas City Midwest Driving School, which won the SS USA World Master 85 AAA Division in Las Vegas. The pitcher was awarded MVP.“Competition in sports was a big part of my life,” he said during his induction ceremony for the National Senior Softball Hall of Fame.
That spirit continues to be an example for all of us.
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