Hargis: Baylor's Gary Partrick learned from Chattanooga coaching legends

Staff photo by Robin Rudd / Baylor golf coach Gary Partrick, left, and McCallie counterpart Rob Riddle speak during their teams' match at Lookout Mountain on Sept. 24, 2015. Partrick has coached Baylor's boys and girls to a combined 11 team state titles, and he has been recognized for his work in several other sports. He recently received the TSSAA Distinguished Service Award.
Staff photo by Robin Rudd / Baylor golf coach Gary Partrick, left, and McCallie counterpart Rob Riddle speak during their teams' match at Lookout Mountain on Sept. 24, 2015. Partrick has coached Baylor's boys and girls to a combined 11 team state titles, and he has been recognized for his work in several other sports. He recently received the TSSAA Distinguished Service Award.

As a movie buff, it was always interesting to play the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game with buddies. For anyone who doesn't know, the object is to find the shortest path - taking no more than six steps - to connect any actor with Kevin Bacon, using films those actors appeared in.

If ever there was a local version of that game, Baylor assistant athletic director and golf coach Gary Partrick would be the ideal centerpiece. Name a Chattanooga-area coaching legend, and it's a safe bet that within a very limited number of steps, a direct connection can be made with Partrick, who earlier this week became the state's first recipient of the TSSAA's Distinguished Service Award for this year.

As the main target for Bill Price's passes at Red Bank, the pair of lifelong friends helped the Lions reach the 1978 state title game. When his football playing days ended, Partrick knew his career choice would be to follow the lead of his high school mentor, legendary Lions coach Tom Weathers.

"Everything I've done is me trying to emulate Coach Weathers," Partrick said. "I may not have always succeeded in that, but it's been my lifelong goal. He was my frame of reference for what a role model is. All I wanted was to come as close as I could to having the type of influence Coach Weathers had on so many."

It was during his second season as a recruiting assistant for Austin Peay's football program in the early 1980s that Partrick was actually the one recruited away from the college game, convinced by East Ridge legend Raymond James to take what would seem to be a step back and join the Pioneers staff.

That began what has become a 39-year career in which Partrick first soaked up every ounce of professional wisdom from those around him, then began dispensing it back to athletes and young coaches within his working orbit.

"Coach James was one of the best I've ever been around when it came to being personable with everyone he came in contact with," Partrick said. "He set a great example for how to build lasting relationships with other coaches and especially the kids. And I've learned that kids are the same, regardless of whether they're in a public school or private. They just want to know that you care about them as a person, not just as an athlete. They don't care how much you know until they find out how much you care.

"I'm teaching sixth graders now who have no idea what I've done in my career. But they'll learn along the way this year that they come first."

From that bedrock foundation, influenced by two of the most respected coaches in Chattanooga-area prep sports history, a career of mentoring and affecting young lives was built. Along the way he made coaching stops at Soddy-Daisy, Cleveland, Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe, Signal Mountain and, for the past 20 years, Baylor, where he has coached the boys' and girls' golf teams to a combined 11 state championships.

He's also been honored as a coach of the year for baseball, football, girls' basketball, softball, track and field and wrestling.

Last year, before guiding both Baylor golf teams to state titles, Partrick first had to battle through a series of personal obstacles, exhibiting the grit and resolve he had shown as a player when he returned to the field a season after fracturing the C5 and C6 vertebrae in his neck.

In July of 2020, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent surgery shortly after the golf season began. Days later he contracted COVID-19, and he has admitted he's still recovering from the effects of the virus.

He returned to oversee both golf programs, guiding the girls to their first state title in seven years and coaching the boys, who had graduated four of the top six players from the previous season, to a nine-stroke championship victory.

"I'll be honest, last year was brutal," said Partrick, whose son Price has followed his footsteps by becoming an assistant on the football staff at East Tennessee State University; daughter Paige still lives nearby with her two young sons.

"Watching the way those players competed was a great pick-me-up, and it just reminded me how much I enjoy being around kids. They're what keep me in it. You get attached to kids and want to see them through their careers until they graduate, and then before you know it another group comes in and you get attached all over.

"My main role now is being the one who listens and gives advice from my experience. I'll keep doing that as long as I feel needed, and when I do decide to get out of coaching it won't be because I'm tired of it, it'll be to spend more time with those two grandsons."

photo Times Free Press sports editor Stephen Hargis

Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.

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