Former Southeast Guilford Falcon Legendary Coach Bill Slayton was in a Battle/Struggle, but the end is here:Thoughts on the Coach Bill Slayton Funeral Service

Some outstanding speakers today/Sunday afternoon at the funeral service for Coach Bill Slayton:Funeral service held at Forbis and Dick Funeral Service in Pleasant Garden, N.C.

Very moving and emotional service with special speakers including the Presbyterian minister who led the service, and he was a former athlete who played under Coach Slayton, at Southeast Guilford High School…

We also heard from former Southern Alamance and Burlington Williams high school football coach Sam Story…We heard from one of Coach Slayton’s top baseball catchers, Jay Terrell…Terrell also played football for Coach Slayton…Coach Sam Story said Coach Bill Slayton was more than a coach, he was a teacher, and he was one of the best friends that Sam Story ever had…More from Jay Terrell, on the impact of Coach Slayton, as you read on here…

Also speaking was Don Causey who played football as a left-handed quarterback for Coach Slayton, and Mr. Causey was on the 1969 State Championship high school baseball team at SEG, plus we heard from former Forsyth County Schools superintendent Larry Coble, who played one year for Coach Slayton at Southeast Guilford, but Coble said he wished he could have played all three varsity years for Coach Slayton…Larry Coble went on to become one of the top public schools administrators in the state of North Carolina, and Don Causey went on to become a regional director for the FBI, and they both said, Coach Bill Slayton helped get them to that next level, because of the work they did, under his leadership, while at Southeast Guilford High School…

Another speaker was former Eastern Guilford principal Lance Sockwell, who was coached by Bill Slayton, when Coach Slayton was the golf coach at Eastern Guilford High School, and Lance went on, with the help of Coach Slayton’s rigorous training, to play college football at Western Carolina University….

Jay Terrell told a moving story about how SEG football player Joe Horne broke his neck while playing football at SEG, and how Coach Slayton was the first person/responder on the field when Joe Horne went down, and how Coach Slayton would not allow Joe Horne to be moved, or allow the game to be continued until the paramedics arrived, and that was forty(40)-some minutes later…Coach Slayton was the first person to the hospital to see Horne, as soon as the game was over, and Coach Slayton was up to the hospital to see Joe Horne for 49 straight days, as that was the duration of time that Horne had to spend in hospital after his injury…They thought Joe Horne would die, and he was paralyzed, but the doctors said Horne survived due to the intense physical training he had endured while training and playing football for Coach Slayton at Southeast Guilford HS…Horne survived because he had been trained to survive…

Terrell told another moving story of a former Southeast Guilford football player that joined the military, and went to the war in Vietnam after high school graduation, and this young man entered the military as a 200-pound warrior…In Vietnam, this young man was captured and became a war prisoner, and he nearly died..When they sent him home, he now weighed 130 pounds, as after his capture, and as a POW, he received nothing to drink, very little food, and had no chance to get a bath…Left out at 200 pounds, and came home at 130…

And how did he survive the capture, and all of the subsequent mistreatment????? This young man had been on the field of battle already, back in high school, at Southeast Guilford High School, where he played football for the football field general, Bill Slayton…The young man survived the war, because of the training he had received while under the watch of Coach Bill Slayton….

Lance Sockwell said training with Coach Bill Slayton was tougher than anything he had ever done before, but that he/Lance Sockwell would have never become a starter for the Western Carolina Catamounts football team, if not for the physical work that Coach Slayton put him through…To a man today, everybody that stood up there said they owe their level of success that they attained after they played, worked, or coached against Coach Slayton, they said they owe it all to Coach Bill Slayton, and the hard work he put them through…Coach Slayton would tell them, “Don’t look at where you are now, look where you can be down the road, and in the future if you don’t stop, if you don’t quit or give up, and if you put in the WORK”….

Coach Bill Slayton’s wife Doris/Darcy Slayton/Miss Coach, was the last person to speak today, and she thanked everyone for coming out today, in support of her, and to be a part of the tribute to Coach Bill Slayton…Lots of tears shed there at the service today, but Coach Slayton would have been crying too, if he would have been there, and it would have been tears of joy, and sobs of gratefulness for all of the great memories that were shared in that room, on this Sunday afternoon…

Sometimes you can learn more about a person after the fact, than what can you learn while the game is still going on…Already knew Coach Slayton had a huge support group backing him up, but learned today, just how deep that Show of Support really runs….

Former Southeast Guilford Falcon Legendary Coach Bill Slayton was in a Battle/Struggle, but the end is here

We have lost one of the legendary coaches from Guilford County’s high school sports history…He coached the Southeast Guilford Falcons baseball team to the 1969 3-A State Baseball Title…He coached the Southeast Guilford football team to several Mid-State 3-A Conference Championships…

Coach Bill Slayton began to put Southeast Guilford High School athletics on the map, when he first arrived at the Forest Oaks community school, back in the mid-1960’s…Mr. Cox, the principal at Southeast Guilford at the time, made sure he got Coach Slayton to sign his new contract quickly, because on arrival at SEG, Cox knew he had a diamond in the rough, and that this coach was going to take Southeast to the top…

Mr. Cox could have never been more right…Coach Bill Slayton was a leader, and being a former military man, from the United States Air Force, Coach Slayton knew that airplanes could fly, and he knew if you coaxed and coached Falcons correctly, then the Falcons, the Southeast Guilford HS brand, those Falcons could soar….And they did under the direction and leadership of Coach Bill Slayton….

Could Slayton was a tough coach, but he was a good man and a good coach too…With all he did for the Southeast Guilford kids, and the work he did in building up young men like Scott Youmans, when Scott was at Eastern Guilford High School and headed to Duke, and with the work he did rehabbing Dion Hackett, when Dino was fighting back from an injury while with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, we ought to be able to go ahead and call Coach Bill Slayton, a great coach…

Coach Steve Spurrier said he had never seen anyone more ready to play college football at Duke, than Scott Youmans…Youmans went on to be named to the All-ACC Football Team while at Duke University, and Coach Slayton was the man that trained Scott Youmans, through and through…Dino Hackett was fighting back, in the battle of his pro football life, and Coach Bill Slayton was there to give Dino the confidence he needed to make it all the way back, and he got him ready with a training program that helped make Dino Hackett one of the top linebackers in the NFL, again-and-again…

With Terry Clapp on the mound and plenty of other outstanding Southeast Guilford Falcons filling out the lineup, Coach Slayton made that 1969 SEG Baseball Team, State Champions…Coach Slayton worked with Terry Clapp, and Coach Slayton also lined up, and worked with the scouts that came to Clapp play, and in the end, Terry Clapp was on his way to replacing Brooks Robinson with the Baltimore Orioles, and Clapp made it all the way to the Orioles Triple A team, before his career ended…

Coach Slayton coached up and developed the running back who many say, was the best to run the ball down at Southeast Guilford HS, and that was Ernie Woods…Woods had the goods, and Coach Slayton made sure Ernie got his carries/touches, and with those carries, it meant Ernie Woods was one of the top high school football running backs to ever come out of Guilford County….

Coach Bill Slayton made these types of things happen, because he was driven, driven right in here from Granite Falls, North Carolina…Times were not easy up there in the hills, back up around the mountains, and in the Caldwell County area…Coach Slayton made his way to college, after serving his stint in the Air Force, and he attended and played baseball for the Appalachian State Mountaineers…Coach Slayton said those were some cold days up there in the Spring of the year, playing baseball at “The Rock”…After graduation from Appalachian State, Coach Slayton did his early school teaching up around the Lenoir area, and then he got the call to come down and meet with Mr. Cox at Southeast Guilford High School, and that is how the legend got started…

The Legend of Bill Slayton, and it was a true legendary status for the old coach…People used to tell stories about Coach Slayton having people pull their cars up to the practice field and cut the lights on when Southeast Guilford would lose a big football ball game, and with the car lights on, the SEG Falcons would start running the hills, with Coach Slayton having whistle in hand, and not bashful about letting the whistle blow, and when you heard the whistle, it meant it was time to run…The wins did not come easy, and the work was hard, but Coach Bill Slayton built this group of Falcons into Winners…The victory celebrations were great fun, and the thrills of winning those Championships for many have lasted a lifetime, but it all came with a price, as is always the case for anything worth having and doing the right way…

Coach Slayton paid the price…He used to load up his football players in his station wagon, and take them to college football games on Saturday afternoons, so the players could meet the college coaches, and so the kids could get a feel for what it was like on a college campus, on a Football Saturday Afternoon…He spent his time, his gas, and took time away from home, and from his wife, Miss Coach Slayton, to give his young football players a chance to see what was available for them on the other side…

And it all came with a price, and now his time is up, and Coach Bill Slayton is gone…The old coach has left us…He made it through 91 outstanding years…

I always liked knowing Coach Slayton because he coached football back in the days when I was growing up, and playing football…He was coaching at Southeast Guilford, and I was playing at Western Guilford, back in the mid-1970’s…So many memories from those days that are now gone by…When I used to call Coach Bill Slayton on the phone and talk to him, it was like I was talking about the good old days, with a true football brother…The brotherhood of sports is a close-knit group, and Coach Slayton sure loved to reminisce about the days when Southeast would battle Ragsdale and Western Guilford, and all of the other Mid-State 3-A teams in football and baseball, and Coach Slayton would tell the story about the time his underdog SEG Falcons went over and knocked off Dick Kemp’s Ragsdale Tigers in Jamestown, and how a 140 pound running back and linebacker, named Charlie Gamble, led his Falcons over the Ragsdale Tigers on that Friday night, in Jamestown, N.C. Coach Slayton was just so proud of his team, and their effort in that victory…

When you talked to him on the phone, Coach Slayton would always ask how his old buddies were doing…He wanted to know about Marion Kirby, Richard Kemp, Phil Weaver, Mac Morris, Frank Starling, Joe Franks, Tommy Norwood and others….He loved to go back and talk about the times he spent over at the North Carolina Coaches Association Office, there near the Grimsley High School campus…

I had remembered Coach Slayton from back in the SEG-Western Guilford football wars, but I first met him, when he was working out at the Fitness Today training center, there in the Quaker Village Shopping Center…”Big” Jim Modlin ran the show, there at the Fitness Today, and here was Coach Bill Slayton, around 75 years old, pumping weights like he was Rocky Balboa, back at the old Philly Gym…Big Ben was still around at the Fitness Today gym back then, as was Rick Carter…Coach Slayton followed “Big” Jim Modlin down to the Fitness Today on Randleman Road, and then again when “Big” Jim moved over to the Strive Fitness Gym, owned by Rob Walsh on Battleground Avenue…

Coach Bill Slayton rode with me and Jim Modlin to a few of our high school baseball and football games back in the day, as we were on the road broadcasting Guilford County high school sports across the state of North Carolina…Coach Slayton loved to make those road trips with us, but now he is gone, and “Big” Jim left out, before The Coach did…The ride is now over to some degree…

It was great seeing “Big” Jim Modlin, when he would cast out one of his patented smiles/grins, and it was even better to be talking to Coach Bill Slayton on the phone and hear him say, “Andrew/Andy, how in the world are you doing?”, and he would just laugh…Heard him and that laugh, as recently as last week…

Won’t be hearing that laugh any more, but we all just need to sit back, and cherish the memories we had, while Coach Bill Slayton was here with us…We do pass our thoughts and regards on to Miss Coach Slayton/Darcy Slayton, as she, Coach Bill Slayton’s dear wife Darcy Slayton has lost the best friend and mate, she could ever have…

The Slaytons helped a lot of people/kids in their roles as teachers in the Guilford County Schools System, and they are to be commended for all of their years of service to the GCS…Thank-you Coach Bill Slayton, and thank-you, Miss Coach Darcy Slayton…We appreciate all you did for our students and athletes in Guilford County…

We now say goodbye, to Coach Bill Slayton, gone at age 91, but leaving us as a true Guilford County Coaching Legend….

RIP:Coach Bill Slayton

**********Southeast Guilford Falcons, Friends, Foes, and Family…Please say a prayer for the family of Coach Bill Slayton, during their time of mourning…..**********

You can check out a couple video interviews we did with Coach Bill Slayton, when you CLICK ON below….Great job on these videos, from Coach Slayton…..

++++++++++Here is an interesting piece we found from the North Carolina General Assembly, back in 1969++++++++++
NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY
1969 SESSION
RESOLUTION 95
HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 1369

A JOINT RESOLUTION CONGRATULATING THE SOUTHEAST GUILFORD HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL FALCONS – 1969 3-A CHAMPIONS.

WHEREAS, The Southeast Guilford High School Baseball team by virtue of its impressive 14-2 record was declared baseball champions of the Mid-State Athletic Conference; and
WHEREAS, Coach Bill Slayton’s high flying Falcons defeated Andrews High School and Forbush High School in their triumphant march to the Western Regional Championship; and
WHEREAS, Southeast Guilford defeated Stedman High School in two consecutive games and as a result of these victories was declared North Carolina’s Class 3-A baseball champions with an overall record of 18 victories and 2 defeats;

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the North Carolina General Assembly:
Section 1. The Southeast Guilford Baseball team, Coach Bill Slayton and Principal John Cox are hereby commended for the championship performance displayed by the Falcons during the 1969 season.
Sec. 2. A copy of this Resolution shall be certified by the Secretary of State and forwarded to Mr. John Cox, Principal, and Mr. Bill Slayton, Baseball Coach, at Southeast Guilford High School, Route 4, Greensboro.
Sec. 3. This Resolution shall become effective upon its adoption.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 25th day of June, 1969.