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COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Abe Naff used to coach Billy Wagner at Ferrum College.

Eric Owens used to be one of Wagner’s Ferrum teammates.

On Sunday, they will be on hand to watch Wagner get inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

“It’s going to probably be very emotional for everybody,� Owens, now Ferrum’s baseball coach, said Saturday in an interview at his hotel. “(Wagner) asked me to be here. I would’ve been here anyway.�

Naff also made the trip north for the induction ceremony.

“I’ve known Billy for a long time,� said Naff, 65, who is now a Ferrum volunteer assistant coach. “This is … the greatest honor a baseball player can receive and I wanted to witness (it) and be there for him. Just so proud of him.

“Couldn’t happen to a nicer, more deserving person.�

Wagner, who pitched for Ferrum from 1991-93, is the first former NCAA Division III player to be elected to Cooperstown.

“It’s exciting,� Naff said. “We knew he was a very, very special talent, but no one can ever predict someone being a hall of famer.�

Wagner, 54, was elected to the hall of fame in January. The Tazewell High School graduate will be the first native of Southwest Virginia to be inducted into Cooperstown.

The 5-foot-10 left-hander was a major-league reliever from 1995-2010. But he was used as both a starting pitcher and as a reliever at Ferrum.

“If he was on a pitch count like in today’s game, he would not have made it out of the third inning. He’d throw 180 pitches a game (as a Ferrum starter),� said Owens, a former major leaguer. “He would walk 19, strike out 19 — and give up no runs. It was unbelievable how he could do that. He would walk the bases loaded, (then) strike them all out.�

Owens is one of at least eight former Ferrum baseball teammates of Wagner who will be on hand for Sunday’s induction ceremony.

Ferrum assistant coach and former Ferrum standout Darren Hodges did not attend the college when Wagner did, but he has made the trip to central New York as well.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,� Hodges said. “A hall of fame player, obviously, but a hall of fame person, too.

Hodges, a former minor-league pitcher, first met Wagner in January 1991. Hodges, a Franklin County High School graduate, was at Ferrum for a bullpen session to get ready for minor-league spring training. Wagner, then a Ferrum freshman, was doing a bullpen session to get ready for his first college season.

“Coach Naff said, ‘I’ve got this left-hander — small kid but gosh, he’s got a strong arm. He wants to play the outfield,’� Hodges said. “(Naff) says, ‘He’s going to be in the bullpen, why don’t you take a look?’

“(Wagner’s) arm speed was obvious. And he was a little guy — probably weighed 145 pounds, 150 pounds. His delivery was real fast, like he wanted to sprint the ball to the plate. I said, ‘Hey, buddy, … just slow your pace down a little.’

“Billy … says I imploded his outfield career because I went down and told Coach Naff after the bullpen (session), ‘If he plays an inning in the outfield for you, you should get fired. He’s going to be unbelievable.’ He was wild and erratic, but the arm speed is something you can’t coach.�

Hodges continued to give Wagner advice during off-season bullpen sessions during Wagner’s college career.

“Generational talent,� Hodges said.

But Wagner was not confident in his pitching as a Ferrum freshman.

“We were on our way to Lynchburg to play a game and he went up to Coach Naff and asked him if he could play center field because he didn’t think he was going to make it as a pitcher,� Owens said. “We’re all looking at each other, going, ‘Are you crazy?’

“So we would make fun of him about being a center fielder. The lineup goes up every day and (we’d) go, ‘Nope, still not in the lineup.’�

Owens and Wagner were also football teammates at Ferrum.

But Wagner, who played safety, was only on the football team in the fall of 1990, when he was a Ferrum freshman. Dave Davis, then the defensive coordinator for the football team, watched Wagner pitch as a freshman in the spring of 1991 and was amazed. So at the end of the 1991 baseball season, Davis told Wagner he was off the football team. Davis did not want Wagner hurting his left arm.

“Dave and I were very good friends,� Naff said. “Dave and I had a number of conversations about it. It was obvious that shoulder didn’t need to be under a set of shoulder pads.�

Wagner, a member of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame, was 17-3 with a 1.63 ERA and 327 strikeouts in 182 1/3 innings in his three college seasons. He turned pro after being drafted by Houston in the first round in 1993.

Naff said Wagner threw his fastball in the mid-to-high 80s when he was in high school but threw 94-98 mph by the time he was a Ferrum junior.

“He had two pitches — hard and harder,� Naff said. “We would get him to shake his head on the mound just so the hitter would think he had another pitch, but he didn’t have one. We would throw a curveball every once in a while.�

Wagner struck out 109 batters in 51 1/3 innings as a Ferrum sophomore in 1992, and earned Division III first-team All-America honors in 1993.

“(Division III batters) were scared because to see that hard of a fastball, you don’t see that in Division III,� Owens said. “Sometimes we were scared for them because sometimes he didn’t know where the ball was going.�

Wagner used to hold the Division III records for the most strikeouts in a career (327) and in a season (133). He still holds the Division III marks for the most strikeouts per nine innings in a season (19.1) and career (16).

“He struck out a lot (of hitters) and walked a lot,� Naff said. “His freshman year, … we were playing The College of Wooster (and) … I took him out — he had a no-hitter going in the seventh inning, but he had walked his 10th batter.�

Wagner, a Crozet resident who is now the baseball coach at The Miller School and a Ferrum volunteer assistant, ranks eighth in major league history with 422 career saves.

“He was a hard thrower at Ferrum. He became a pitcher later on, in pro ball,� Naff said.

CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki, the late Dave Parker (who played minor league baseball for the Salem Pirates) and the late Dick Allen also will be inducted Sunday.