Football for Bill Price usually is a year-round love interrupted only by the mandated midsummer no-contact period.
This spring, though, the Signal Mountain coach also has directed the Eagles baseball team. His yearlong football regimen continued, although he scheduled strength training from 6 to 7 a.m. and after school before baseball practice.
He has done it before, coaching baseball at alma mater Red Bank when he was an assistant to football coaching legend Tom Weathers.
Price didn’t neglect football then or now, but never has he relegated baseball to a simmering back burner. In four seasons at Red Bank and this one at Signal Mountain, his teams have rewarded him with more than 100 victories.
“Baseball is something a lot of the kids have a lot of pride about, and I am trying to make sure they have the best possible chance to succeed,” he said.
Those who coach two or more sports are a disappearing breed in an age of specialization, and wearing two hats can make for long days. Price arrives at the school before 6 a.m. for the morning weightlifting session for football players and doesn’t leave until after the afternoon lifting and a baseball practice or game.
“We’re going to make sure we get our workouts in,” he said. “Nine of the 12 baseball players are football players too, and they know I’m going to demand a lot. I tell them they’re not going to outwork me, and they know what we expect. They show up and get the work done, and I think they’re proud of what we do.”
Greg Ellis is the only football assistant on the Signal Mountain faculty, and he was going to be Price’s baseball assistant. But that plan fell through when Ellis had to take over the girls’ softball program. It leaves no one but Price to oversee football and baseball.
“We’re still meeting (for football), and we have fundraisers going. It has to be done,” he said. “But if I’m not staying busy, then I’m not really happy.”
His career began that way. His first job as a head football coach was at Lookout Valley, where he also served as head wrestling coach and the middle school baseball coach.
“I’ve been married 27 years, and (wife) Debbie has gotten used to it,” he said.
East Hamilton athletic director Ted Gatewood serves as the Hurricanes’ football and track coach.
“You have to handle each sport with equal importance. This is track’s time,” Gatewood said. “We have to juggle the schedule, but the priority goes with track because it’s the season right now.”
Gatewood and Price scheduled spring football practice as late as possible in the school year.
“You want to stay out of exam weeks, and you want to stay out of the time that the kids are in the postseaon whether it’s tennis, baseball, track or soccer. Those kids are exempt (from spring football),” Gatewood said. “The biggest thing is scheduling around what the kids have going on in other sports.”
When he was at Ooltewah, Gatewood and Benny Monroe, then the Owls’ head football and track coach, split their practice time.
“I would work the kids at some (track) events, and when I finished I’d go to football and Benny would come up and work track,” Gatewood said.
Tennessee high school football is allowed 15 days to get in 10 days of work on the field.
East Ridge football coach Mike Martin helps football assistant Jimmy Starling with the Pioneers’ track program. But Martin had spring football practice early — about the time Starling was getting started with track.
“The kids go through spring football and track at the same time,” Martin said. “We started football practice with offense, and he’d work with the girls in track while I was doing football and then we’d swap.”
He believes that the double duty is tougher on the coaches than the kids.
“I have learned that kids don’t get tired,” Martin said. “We have even pushed track practice back and have the track guys go after football practice. The kids have a routine. When the bell rings they get dressed, get to stretching and go to work.”
Martin still doesn’t have the schedule he once maintained. He used to coach football and assist with girls’ and boys’ junior high basketball teams and with the high school boys’ basketball team.
There is more diversity among coaches now.
“The seasons are longer and there is more emphasis on each individual sport,” Price said.
He would like once again to be among those coaching a single sport.
“Hopefully we’ll have another head baseball coach next season,” he said. “We need to make sure they have the best possible chance to succeed in that sport.”