Samuel Pinion

Sam Pinion was inducted posthumously into the College of Applied Human Sciences Hall of Fame in the fall of 2025. He was previously inducted into the College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences Hall of Fame in 2012.

A native of Wheeling, W.Va., Pinion was an all-state football player at Wheeling High School before attending West Virginia University, where he became a three-year letterman in football. Standing just 5-foot-5 and weighing 128 pounds, he is remembered as the smallest player in Mountaineer football history.

After earning his bachelor’s degree from WVU in 1940, Pinion returned to Wheeling High to coach freshman football, basketball, and track. He then served four years in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. Following his discharge in 1946, he returned to Morgantown and helped establish West ­Virginians Inc., a statewide fundraising initiative for athletic scholarships that served as a forerunner to the Mountaineer Athletic Club.

Pinion spent the next 29 years as a salesman for Wilson Sporting Goods, then the world’s leading supplier of athletic equipment. After retiring from Wilson, he launched Pinion Realty Company in Morgantown, a family business that has been owned and operated by the Pinion family since 1979. He remained active in WVU Athletics as an alumni representative on the Athletic Council and served in leadership roles with the Morgantown Touchdown Club, Pines Country Club, U.S. Olympic Committee in West Virginia, and the West Virginia Sportswriters Association. 

He passed away in October 2005.