Randy Smith
Coach Vic Grider will send his South Pittsburg High School Football team to a very familiar place this weekend. The Pirates will play for the TSSAA Class 1A Championship at noon central time this Friday in Cookeville, Tn., in the annual Blue Cross-Blue Shield Bowl. This marks the third straight year and the fourth time in five years the Pirates have been to the championship game. South Pittsburg is a perfect example of a small community banding together and building a championship football program.
While Coach Grider seeks his fourth state title since becoming head coach in 1996, there is a long list of predecessors who forged that winning tradition in the small southeast Tennessee community. The late Phil Beene won big at South Pittsburg long before there was a playoff system to determine state champs. The stadium in South Pittsburg is named Beene Stadium in his honor. Vic’s late father Don Grider, won the very first Class 1A title in 1969, still playing the “single-wing”, years after everyone else had given up on the offense made famous by former Tennessee Head Coach Robert Neyland.
I heard plenty about that “single-wing” from one of my college roommates Don Everett, who was the tailback in the Pirates offense. Don Grider who passed away in 2007 was the epitome of a small town high school football coach. He had a beard and was as gruff and rough as any man I ever knew. When he retired, Danny Wilson took over and won the 1994 state championship and even won the state baseball title as well the following spring. Wilson, also a former head coach at Cleveland High is currently an assistant on Vic Grider’s staff.
When the South Pittsburg Middle School baseball team played Grundy County for the district championship this past spring in Jasper, there was a huge following from South Pittsburg. Among the fans were several of the Pirate football coaches, teachers and administrators. That kind of support is why South Pittsburg’s athletic teams are successful, year in and year out. It takes talent and hard work to be a winner, but it’s a lot easier when you have people other than your parents supporting you.
It all starts with football in South Pittsburg. Pirate junior quarterback Jake Stone is the grandson of Johnny Stone who helped the 1969 Pirates win their first state title. Johnny’s son Wes, (Jake’s father, who is currently an assistant coach for the Pirates), won a championship ring in 1994, and Jake picked up one last year as a sophomore. Three generations of state champs, from the same family, all wearing the orange and black. For most high school football players, winning a state championship ring is a tremendous privilege and honor. In South Pittsburg, it is also an expectation.
Coach Vic Grider has posted an overall record of 161-35 in his tenure at South Pittsburg. In addition to Wes Stone and Danny Wilson, he also has his younger brother Heath, as well as E.J. Bradford, David Hale, Jim Thomas, and Freddie Tidmore on his coaching staff; a staff that is more like a family than a group of fellow employees. They all work together, unselfishly, for one common goal; to be playing in the BlueCross-Blue Shield Bowl on the first weekend in December of each year.
The Pirates(12-2) will face unbeaten Wayne County from Waynesboro on Friday. It will be a tough task but for a coach with the first name, Victory, state title number four could be just around the corner.
Contact Randy Smith at rsmithsports@comcast.net
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Randy Smith has been covering sports in Tennessee for the last 42 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has continued his broadcasting career as a free-lance play-by-play announcer, author and is also a media concepts teacher at Red Bank High School in Chattanooga. He is currently teaching an "Intro To Sportscasting" class at Red Bank, the only class of its type in Tennessee.
Randy Smith's career has included a 17-year stint as scoreboard host and pre-game talk show host on the widely regarded "Vol Network". He has also done play by play of more than 500 college football, basketball, baseball and softball games on ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports, CSS and Tennessee Pay Per View telecasts. He was selected as "Tennessee's Best Sports Talk Show Host" in 1998 by the Associated Press. He has won other major awards including, "Best Sports Story" in Tennessee and his "Friday Night Football" shows on WRCB-TV twice won "Best Sports Talk Show In Tennessee" awards. He has also been the host of "Inside Lee University Basketball" on CSS for the past 10 years.
Randy and his wife, Shelia, reside in Hixson. They have two married children (Christi and Chris Perry Davey and Alison Smith). They also have one grandchild (Coleman).