Godfrey to be inducted into Georgia Sports Hall of Fame
William “Buck” Godfrey will enter his third Hall of Fame in the state when he is inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame on Feb. 24 in Macon after 30 years heading the Southwest DeKalb High School football program.
Godfrey had no thoughts of these Hall of Fame honors (Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame in 2010 and Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2014) let alone having a stadium named for him when he joined the teaching staff at the former Gordon High School in the DeKalb County School District in 1974.
“These Hall of Fame honors were not really a thought to me when I started coaching,” Godfrey said. “I was concerned with developing students and athletes into good citizens. The Hall of Fame thing was something mentioned later in my career, and I am truly humbled. It is a privilege and honor. It also overwhelming to be in a Hall of Fame with the likes of Sugar Ray Robinson, Mel Blount and David Dupree.”
The Jacket Ceremony is set for Feb. 23 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Barrington Hall Golf Club, with induction the next night from 5:30 to 9 at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in Macon. Godfrey is one of eight to be inducted, a group that includes Atlanta Braves great Andruw Jones and former Georgia football coach Mark Richt.
Godfrey, a South Carolina native, played football and baseball at Delaware State University before going on to study at Columbia and New York Universities. He served as a football and baseball team captain and would later be inducted into the Delaware State Athletic Hall of Fame.
Once at Gordon High School, Godfrey coached baseball, going from 5-12 in his first year to 26-4 in his second. He moved to Towers High School in 1976 coaching eighth-grade football and swimming.
“I had to learn how to coach swimming at Towers coaching both girls and boys against some of the elite programs in the county and state,” Godfrey said.
He coached Towers to several Top-10 finishes in the state meet before getting the call in 1983 to become the head football coach at Southwest DeKalb.
His career would span 30 years (1983-2012) with a record of 273-89-1 and a 1995 state championship in which his team defeated Parkview 14-7 to finish 14-1. His teams made the playoffs in 27 of his 30 seasons and never had a losing record in the regular season. His 2002 squad made the state playoffs and lost in the first round to finish 5-6.
“The first thing we had to do was win over the players and the community,” Godfrey said. “They had run the wishbone for years, and Eric Jones was my first quarterback. He had to adjust to a different system. All the coaches left except Fred Dawston and Ken Chandler and we had to pull together.”
That first team would go 10-3-1, win the Region 7-4A title and reach the Class 4A semifinals.
“We beat Redan in the first year and that was a big deal in DeKalb. When we beat Peachtree to reach the state playoffs, the community bought in to what we were doing,” Godfrey said.
Godfrey noted he never had being a head football coach as a goal. His dreams included becoming the Middle Heavyweight World Boxing Champion like Sugar Ray Robinson or center fielder for the New York Giants in the footsteps of Willie Mays.
“I owe a lot of people for the success we had at Southwest DeKalb,” Godfrey said. “Cecil Jones at Gordon, Ray Bonner and George Pugh at Columbia and Willie Hunter at Fulton were instrumental in my development. They all allowed me to watch practices and learn how to organize one. Coaches like Eddie Robinson, Joe Gilliam, Bill Curry and Bobby Ross taught me a lot over the years.”
Godfrey is 17th in Georgia with his 273 wins and earned 13 region titles, two state finals appearances and seven semifinal appearances. He also earned DeKalb County Coach of the Year honors on five occasions. His state championship team in 1995 broke a string of five consecutive playoff losses by the Panthers to Clarke Central.
“I never really thought of myself as a head coach, but all the years of film study and hard work paid off,” Godfrey said. “It was like the great spirit was preparing me and I had no idea what was in store for me.”
Now he is being recognized with Georgia greats such as Nick Hyder, Wayman Creel, T. McFerrin, Robert Davis and Billy Henderson.
Besides just winning games, Godfrey wanted his students/athletes to go on to become good citizens and have the foundation to move on after football was over through their education. He had at least 299 football players get the opportunity to get an education through scholarships as well as many of the swimmers he coached along the way at Towers and Southwest DeKalb. His first scholarship player came from baseball in Gordon’s Tony Shanks.
Special teams were an area in which Godfrey took pride, and the fact that 26 kickers or long snappers from Southwest DeKalb earned scholarships is something else he takes pride into this day.
“Getting young people opportunities to make even more of themselves outside of athletics through furthering their education was always a part of my plan,” Godfrey said.
Godfrey retired from coaching in 2012, and in 2015 the DeKalb County School District honored him by renaming Panthersville Stadium where he roamed the sidelines for many of his victories in his honor. It is now known as William “Buck” Godfrey Stadium.
The coach with a Masters in English is also an accomplished writer with five books published over the years, including “Moods of a Black Man”, “Songs for My Father”, “The Team Nobody Would Play”, “Where the Woodbine Twineth and the Sycamore Ceased to Bloom” and “My Friend Eddie Robinson – An American Legend.”
- Mark Brock, DeKalb County Schools