Doug Rosser didn't attend East Ridge High School. There was no such school when he graduated from Central. But he as much as any other has been an integral part of Pioneers spirit and the East Ridge community since the school fielded its first football team in 1959.
"All I have ever thought is that he is the ultimate Mr. East Ridge. He'd do anything for anybody at East Ridge High School, and he has always encouraged the kids to do their best," said Catherine Neely, the school's athletic director and herself a prominent figure in the school's colorful past.
These days, though a retired Combustion Engineering welder and a 21-year member of Hamilton County's educational system, Rosser remains active. He is in his 47th year as a member of the football team's sideline "chain gang," the group that attends to the down-and-distance markers at home football games and one that includes his son, brother-in-law, son-in-law and nephew.
East Ridge chain gang member Doug Rosser flips the down marker. Rosser has been working the chains for the Pioneers for over 48 years. The East Ridge Pioneers hosted the Signal Mountain Eagles at Baylor School in TSSAA football action on Friday September 4, 2015.That lengthy Friday night service is just the tip of Rosser's giving. He worked for years helping coaches maintain, service and repair a football stadium that aged without much grace.
"You look at every athletic facility over there and he's probably had a hand in it," said former Pioneers football coach Tim James, son of the Pioneers' second head coach and stadium namesake, Raymond James. "(Rosser) was like a second dad to me - took me hunting and fishing - and he was always so encouraging to every kid I knew."
Rosser also coached Tim in youth baseball and football.
He agreed that over the years he has worked on everything at East Ridge Middle and High schools. He built the softball field out of a swamp, moved and built the baseball field, constructed volleyball goals and nets and basketball ball caddies and helped create the soccer field.
"I never turned any of them down," he said.
Asked why Neely, among others, referred to him as Mr. East Ridge, Rosser chuckled before responding, "Half of East Ridge likes me and the other half doesn't, but I always was a guy, I guess, that could get things done."
Numerous coaches agreed on that point.
"He and my dad were buddies. What endeared him to Raymond was Raymond knowing Doug was always going to be honest with him and tell him like it was," the younger James recalled. "Doug was always there to help and always wanted to help, and he was instrumental in raising a lot of money."
There was the bus that the senior James purchased, as an example.
"Doug raised probably $20,000 and we're talking about late (19)70s money. That'd probably be close to $100,000 these days," Tim James said.
"Doug has been one of the most faithful, giving and supporting Pioneers I have ever known. For the 14 years I spent as a teacher and coach there, there wasn't anything Doug wouldn't help you with," said Tom Watson, a former East Ridge coach now working at Baylor. "Most importantly, he helped kids. He took some of the most difficult-to-teach kids and taught them to be exceptional welders.
"There is no telling how many kids owe him for getting them started in their careers. He probably has kids he taught working at every place in Chattanooga that welds."
Gary Partrick, another former East Ridge coach now at Baylor, agreed wholeheartedly.
"He's an original and a true Pioneer - the most loyal supporter a coach could ask for - and he would do anything to help the players, coaching staff or community," Partrick said of Rosser. "He's one of my all-time favorites."
Current football coach Tracy Malone is no different.
"There are probably 5,000 Doug Rosser stories," he said. "I've gotten to know him over the past four years, and he truly loves East Ridge."
Perhaps James said it best when he offered a bottom-line appraisal of a man who has been his mentor, confidant and friend: "He loves and cares about kids, and he has spent his life trying to help the kids of East Ridge. That's just how he is, and that's how he'll be remembered."
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.