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A complete cultural change happened at Greeneville and the administration and community opened up their checkbooks. What a lot of people don't know is Ballard was Zeller's OC for many years and stopped coaching for two years because Zeller and Ballard didn't see eye to eye on some things. Zeller lead Greeneville to it's first ever Semi Final appearance in 2000 and lost 28-12 at Maryville and had them in the Quarter Finals in 2002 and 2003. Z was a great coach but lost some control when it came to making workouts mandatory. (He learned from that Mistake and it was at LC when i coached with him.). Z was let go going into my Senior Year and was replaced by Steve McCurry who was the one that turned the program around. Steve had won a 4a state championship at AC Reynolds in Asheville and made the administration completely redo the weight room with new equipment, had a football period at the end of the school day to lift, started devil camp, and brought in coaches like Danny Bentley (Still the OL coach), Ballard as the OC, Cody Baugh (QB coach and still there), and even Spradlen who is Greeneville's head coach now as the DB's Coach. McCurry only coached for two seasons at Greeneville and took a team that had a losing record the year before and finished my Senior Year making it to the Quarters and having a 10-3 record and then followed it up with a Semi Final appearance the next year with an 11-3 record and back to back conference championships. Loved McCurry to death but the recession hit and the story i heard was he was still buying new equipment for the team that the Principal didn't authorize and his response was "I don't answer to you and only to Niswonger and Bewley" (Two huge donors). That was it for him and they Promoted Ballard shortly after that. Greeneville had always been relevant ever since the the late 70's under Coach Fred Sorrell's. Since Sorrell's took over in 1977 Greeneville overall winning percentage is over 76%. The biggest reason people might not have thought Greeneville was "Good" until Ballard was Greeneville always played up Classification wise and could never get over the hump. (When there were 3 classifications we played 3a, when it went to 5 we played 4a). Greeneville is the largest its ever been with 953 students and where playing teams 2 or 3 times there size back in the day (I had a little over 800 kids in the school when i graduated in 2008). Other teams always would know they would be sore after a game but depth took over and never won a Championship until Greeneville played in the classification the TSSAA actually assigned them. You had names like Dustin Moore (1993 Mr Football for 3a and who Phillip Fulmer said was one of the greatest athletes he ever recruited), James "Mud Turtle" Mayes, Brigham Lyons, Byron Gillespie, Frankie Debusk (National Champion Qb at Furman with GQ), Jasmine Lowery, Cody Baugh, The Greenway Brothers, Joe Watson (Furman), etc. Now the cultural is from the Pee Wee league up and you grow up as a young kid wanting to wear the Greene and White. Here is a really good link when it comes to anything Greeneville Football related. https://greenevillefootball.com/ I also don't coach anymore. Z told me i was to smart with how the school systems are ran these days and ended up going into real estate in Knoxville which has been a great decision for my life. -
By The Drunken Sailor · Posted
Yes, they will. I'm wondering what kinds of strides Sale Creek will make heading into the second season under Coach Fitz. -
No yellow stripes on the rug last night. Biggest crowd I’ve seen at 825 since the alco debacle. -
By CaptainLongbeard · Posted
I know most Pirate starters were seniors last year. Im not sure how accurate it is but someone said we only have 3 seniors. That Prep team will probably make some noise this coming season too.
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