Happy Birthday Bill Slayton:Guilford County Coach of the Year 1969(Coach Slayton 89 years old today)

Happy Birthday today, to Coach Bill Slayton…Coach Slayton turns 89 years old/89 years young today…Born on the Fourth of July, Bill Slayton.

The Guilford County Coach of the Year for 1969, that has to be Bill Slayton.

During the 1968-1969 school year/season, Coach Bill Slayton coached the Southeast Guilford Falcons to the NCHSAA 3-A State Title in Baseball and during the Fall of 1968, he coached his SEG Falcons football team to the 3-A Football Semifinal round…

Definitely Coach of the Year credentials right there…

Bill Slayton was not easy on his kids at Southeast Guilford HS…Coach Slayton is a former military man and his coaching style might be categorized as “Tough Love”….But I bet those Falcons, from SEG, were loving it when they saw their football fortunes go from (0-30) to the State Semifinals, just a few years after Coach Slayton got there to SEG..

Going from (0-30) before he arrived at SEG, to the 3-A State Semifinals….Not bad at all….

Then the baseball team from SEG goes all the way to the 3-A Championship Series in the Spring of 1969, and the SEG Falcons win the State Championship….SEG had a pretty solid battery of pitcher Terry Clapp and catcher Jay Terrell…Clapp was (11-0) on the hill for the SEG Falcons in 1969, and Clapp went on to the Baltimore Orioles, in the MLB Draft of 1969….

Coach Slayton had Clapp, Terrell, Larry Dale Coble, the FBI-man Mr. Don Causey and many other outstanding SEG Falcons….

But, ole Coach Slayton is the man that got them there….And can you believe it, that was 51 years ago, and now here today, in 2020, Coach Bill Slayton is now 89 years old

As the old saying goes, “He’s not as good as he once was, but he’s as good once, as he ever was”…That’s Coach Bill Slayton, a very rare breed/bird/Falcon….

We need to recognize leaders and legends like this in our community…This ole Bird/Falcon got the job done…And he did it with “Tough Love”….The man was tough on those SEG Falcons, but it paid of to the tune of Championship Level teams…

Not sure about the tales of those Friday nights when the Falcons would lose, and Coach Slayton would have his Falcon footballers up on the hill, and running those hills after a Friday Night Finish that didn’t fit the Falcons…The cars would line the field, with headlights turned on, and the Falcons would be running those hills…At least that is part of the legend, and when you become a “Coaching Legend”, these type of stories are going to follow you around…Not sure how much of it is true, but this old Falcons, Bill Slayton, caused people to stop, take notice, talk, and listen…

Coach Slayton became a legend and he still is today…

That is why we are writing about him here today…..89 years old and born on the Fourth of July…..

Coach Bill Slayton(SEG), Coach Marion Kirby(Page HS), Coach C.K. Siler(Southern Guilford HS), Coach Richard Kemp(Ragsdale HS)….We have have had some real good ones around Guilford County, over the years…

As the years roll on by, we need to keep on remembering these coaches…They all showed their own form of “Tough Love”, but these football men/leaders showed compassion too….Keep these men in your thoughts and prayers these days…..It is not getting any easier on them, as they get older….

You sure wanted to beat those coaches back in day, and if you did, you were lucky/fortunate….

Coach Slayton had Ernie Woods in his backfield and Ernie Woods was hard to catch…Coach Kemp had RB Ricky Adams, and “Buck the Truck” was a full load…We could tackle Adams and throw him to the ground…(Nope, never really happened.)

There was a lot of running back talent around here back in those days in the 1970’s, and the Mid-State 3-A Conference was as good as any conference in the state of North Carolina….

Those old coaches got the job done, but who is going to fill their shoes???

These will be hard long-term shoes to fill….Slayton, Kirby, Siler, Kemp….Maybe Steven Davis(Dudley HS), Darryl Brown(Grimsley HS) and Earl Bates(Southeast Guilford HS)…Maybe so, as those men are high on Coach Slayton’s list of coaches that he still follows closely…

Usually here on the Fourth of July, I will go back and do a Coach Bill Slayton reprint of some of his birthday posts from previous years…But not this year…

Coach Slayton needs this special lift today…He has taken some hard falls in recent months and we are hoping he can keep on getting back up and continue to battle….You have to be able to battle and Bill can Battle…He would give up his left arm to get back in that weight room over there on Battleground Avenue, and James Ellis better look out, Coach Slayton will be challenging James, James III, and Jayden, as soon as that left arm will allow him to….

We have to get Coach Bill Slayton back out there battling again, and we need to see Bill Battle…Dino and Joey Hackett better look out, if Coach Bill gets back to battling again…Scott Youmans better shape up if Bill gets battling again….Lance Sockwell may lose his lawn mowing license if Coach Slayton finds his way back to the front line…

This man is not done, but we are….

Our salute to Coach Bill Slayton reads for 2020:

Happy Birthday Bill Slayton:Guilford County Coach of the Year 1969(Coach Slayton 89 years old today)

**********Coach Bill Slayton, get back to battling soon, but keep it at a little bit slower pace…#90 is just around the corner.)**********

We have this salute for everyone here today on the Fourth of July, 2020…Born in the USA, and you can let it play, when you Click On Below…Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen is ready to let it rip….Go for it, Born in the USA…