Electric then and now: He shined for Clemson in baseball, football before career path

Editor’s note: This story is part of The State’s series “SC Sports: Where are the stars now?“

Bob Paulling once piled up statistics to envy and honors to cherish in the athletic arena. Lofty batting averages and deadly place-kicking accuracy led to all-star recognition and achievements few attain.

He now crunches numbers in the business world, delving into the mysteries of kilowatt hours, electricity rates, solar power and broadband networks.

Then, he sparkled in football and baseball at St. Matthews High and Clemson University.

Now, he occupies the corner office — president and chief executive officer — at Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative in Lexington.

Then, he racked up the rarest of doubles, leading the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring in football and batting average in baseball in the same calendar year, earning all-conference honors in both sports.

Now, he oversees the electric cooperative that stretches through parts of five counties, has a seat on the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and has been named one of the Columbia Metro area’s most influential people by Columbia Business Monthly.

Abraham Lincoln talked about studying and preparing for opportunities that might arise, and Bob Paulling personifies that philosophy.

Mid-Carolina’s board of trustees sought a visionary to take over on the retirement of a long-serving CEO and found Paulling in 2013. Clemson football coach Danny Ford needed a quick replacement for an injured kicker and found Paulling in 1981.

In its search for a new leader, Mid-Carolina board chairman Marvin Sox told RE Magazine in a 2018 interview, “We were in a position of financial strength; we didn’t need a financial person. We had a strong engineering department; we didn’t necessarily need an engineer. We needed a visionary, someone who could help us transition to the future.”

Although an engineer, Paulling got the job thanks to, Sox said, his forward-looking ideas that impressed the board.

His opportunity to impress Danny Ford came unexpectedly. Although he had handled the kickoff duties in 1979, his freshman year, and redshirted in 1980, he figured to be the reserve kicker behind Donald Igwebuike in what would become Clemson’s first national championship season.

“In New Orleans to play Tulane (in the season’s second game), we were on the bus heading to the Superdome,” Paulling remembered. “Somebody looked out and saw Donald running after the bus. He had been caught in the elevator and missed the bus.

“Long story short, he pulled a hamstring running after the bus and I kicked (two field goals and an extra point) that night.”

He kept the job, making 34 of 41 field goals and 107 of 109 extra points in his career. His .829 career field goal percentage remains the best in school history.

“I even talked Coach (Bill) Wilhelm to let me pitch a bit,” he said.

In 1983, he led ACC baseball with a .407 average in the spring and ACC football in scoring with 90 points in the fall, feats that earned him all-conference honors in two sports the same calendar year.

Many fans will remember him for his athletic achievements at Clemson, but few will recall he majored in electrical engineering.

Remember “preparation?” That degree came in handy after failing to make the NFL.

“I went to work for a consulting company in Orangeburg (in 1984) and we did work for electric cooperatives,” Paulling said. “That led me to join Tri-Country Electric Coop in power station design.”

He moved to Mid-Carolina in an engineering position, then back to Tri-County to take CEO reins before opportunity and his visionary outlook brought him back to lead Mid-Carolina.

“A lot has changed through the years,” he said, but his love for Clemson remains strong. Fall Saturdays find him at Death Valley, and among the prized possessions in his office is a football helmet signed by both Danny Ford and Dabo Swinney.

He ticks off differences in the cooperative operations, then said, “But one thing hasn’t changed: If we have a storm, we still have to get out the chain saws and climb the poles.”