Not many details yet, but was we get more we will post them on here….Coach Flinchum came to Western Guilford High School, from Eastern Guilford High School/Gibsonville HS…At Eastern Guilford High School/Gibsonville, Coach Flinchum coached football and basketball, and he may have helped with some baseball…Coach Flinchum was primarily an assistant football and basketball coach at Western Guilford High School..
Coach Flinchum came to Western Guilford around the Fall of 1975, and he arrived around the same as Western assistant coach Johnny Smith…
Coach Flinchum had much success at Eastern Guilford/Gibsonville, where he may have been the girls head basketball coach…Thinking he may have coached Tina Gunn and Donna Holt and if he didn’t, I’m sure he knew them…
Coach Eddie Flinchum was pretty much old-school in some regards, as he went pretty much by the book, but he was a nice man, and he had a good sense of humor…Thinking he was the head JV boys basketball coach at Western Guilford, taking over the spot/position, when Coach John Brooks left WG and went down to Charlotte, to coach and be the AD at Northside Christian School…
I remember Coach Flinchum assisting head coach Alan/Hoyt/Casey Jones with the boys varsity basketball team at Western Guilford…With the JV boys basketball team, I think Mr. Wolfe and Coach Johnny Smith, were the assistant coaches for Coach Eddie Flinchum…Coach Flinchum really knew his basketball…..
Coach Flinchum was a Driver’s Education teacher at Western Guilford, so he was right in there teaching with Mr. Joe Robinson, in the Driver’s Ed Department, at Western Guilford High School…
All of my memories of Coach Eddie Flinchum are good from Western Guilford HS, and he again, was a fair man, with a good sense of humor, and he was deep into sports, pure to the bone….
I always liked giving the teachers and coaches nicknames, and I would try and rhyme them as much as possible, and we would call Coach Flinchum, “Clinch-Em” Flinchum….Sounded good for that time frame…For Coach Doug Henderson, his nickname was “Tick” for his days a football team student assistant at the University of North Carolina, and Coach Henderson would hang in there like a “Tick”, as he followed and studied the UNC Tar Heels football team…Coach Bill Hollifield was a native born American-Indian and he had a nickname that everyone called him, and it was known around the campus and the small community of Guilford College…No need to go bringing that old nickname back up here….Wasn’t all that bad, but we are here to remember Coach Eddie Flinchum….There were some other nicknames too, but a lot of those names have begun to escape me now…I think for Coach Alan Jones, the name “Casey” might have been his nickname…Not all that bad, and sort of like the railroad days of “Casey” Jones…
Lots of good memories of Coach Eddie Flinchum and he was a coach who knew his stuff….
More details about his passing will be on the way, and we add them to this post here, or add to a new updated post….Coach Flinchum helping with football, basketball, and maybe even baseball too, back in the day at Western Guilford High School, and he will be missed….I can still see him in that gold Western Guilford wind-breaker jacket even today…He wore the wire-rim glasses, and those glasses may have even been tinted just a bit…Coach Flinchum did not have much hair on the top of his head, but that did not slow him down one bit, it may have made him even faster, as he got around coaching, from sport-to-sport….
RIP:Coach Eddie Flichum
from Roger Greene, a Western Guilford graduate, and this coming in from his Facebook page, and it was sent our way, by another former Western Guilford High School student…
Some of you may remember Coach and teacher, Eddie Flinchum. I’m sorry to report that he has passed. If you know some individuals in classes that came after yours, would you please pass this on? When I know more details I’ll update. Please keep Mark, Scott, and Jan in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks.
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from October 1, 1990 Greensboro News and Record by Brian Tomlin:
Fifty-four-year-old Eddie Flinchum says he’ll bring a young man’s enthusiasm to his new job as boys’ basketball coach at Western Guilford High School.
“Teaching in a way keeps you young,’ said Flinchum, who was named as Jack Tesh’s successor Monday, three months after Tesh resigned and exactly one month before practice starts for the upcoming season.“You hear the latest slang,’ he said. “You see the lastest fads. I don’t really see any problem there. I think I have good rapport with the students.’
Flinchum, who hasn’t been a varsity boys’ head coach since he left old Gibsonville High in 1972, said it’s good to be back.
“It’s something I have wanted to do for quite some time,’ he said.
Flinchum has served as Tesh’s assistant and as head coach of the varsity girls’ and the junior varsity boys’ teams since coming to Western in 1974. He has also coached baseball, football, tennis and golf in a 25-year career, but he said basketball is his first love.
“I’m a basketball coach first,’ he said. “I’ve done that more than anything else. It’s what I enjoy more than anything else.’ – Brian Tomlin