The First Time I Met Willie Varner

On the day that we learned that Willie Varner passed away at the age of 82, I remember the first time I visited the South Carolina coaching legend who led Woodruff High School to 383 victories and 10 state championships.

I was working at a TV station in Columbia, but Varner was such a major figure in South Carolina, I thought venturing outside the Midlands to do a story on him was well worth the time.

It was a sunny afternoon in 1985 when I stopped by practice. Varner would have been in his late 50's at that point, but he was the kind of guy who you didn't want to make mad.

He was formidable physically and told a story about how he decided to fight the toughest guy in Woodruff once just to see who was the better man. Maybe it was just a tale, but he was a man who just had the presence of a legend.

And he couldn't have been kinder.

Varner won the last of his 10 championships the year before our visit. Up to that time, he said no Woodruff player had ever gone on to play major college football. His quarterback on the 1985 team - Tony Rice - changed that.

Varner told great stories and shared the hard work philosophy we me that some were considering out of touch in the mid 1980s.

But the thing I'll always remember was what happened after our interview was complete. It was time for the Wolverine players to practice kickoff coverage and returns, so Varner took the team into Woodruff's stadium.

They took their places on the field, while Varner went into the stands, grabbed the press box public address system microphone and started his critique.

He could probably have been heard without the help, but with the speakers blaring those words, it just echoed around. Woodruff's stadium sits in a bit of a hole from the street and there wasn't anything else to make noise in town.

It sounded like His voice and the words just pierced the rest of the silence around Woodruff that day.

I went to a Woodruff game last year when they hosted Broome. There isn't a better place to go to a game in South Carolina than Woodruff. It reminds me when the high school football game was the thing to do on a Friday night.

Coach Varner was there, sitting next to the fence of the sideline. He was still dressed in his Woodruff colors.

And I'm glad I got to see Coach Varner again. I would never think to call him Willie. I thanked him for that first time I met him and all the years I covered his teams once I came to News Channel 7.

He's one man who earned the term legend.