Bill Rhodes was a unique coach. Several times during a Friday evening Celebration of Life, you heard about how he could “chew your butt out” then give the players and students he disciplined and mentored “a big hug” and, you just knew, everything was going to be alright.
When he was disciplining a student, first he would listen. He would get your side of the story. He would let you talk until you wore yourself out, then he would say, “I have listened. Now, here’s how it’s going to be.”
Bill Rhodes gave 65 years of his life, and passion, to School District 56, and that legacy was celebrated prior to Friday night’s Clinton vs Mountain View Prep region, high school football game. As a child, growing up in Whitmire, he would pick up coal to heat the family home after the coal train came through. He was a businessman, he loved to travel, he knew every tree, every branch on the land he owned and roamed. He was a poker player. He was a highly successful baseball coach – in his later days, he saw pretty much every student, every day as he ran a cash register in the cafeteria.
This was his life-lesson, “hard work always pays off.”
“You hear people all the time, tell us that they care. Coach Rhodes showed us that he cared,” Voice of the Red Devils Buddy Bridges said. “He leaves a legacy, that is an understatement if I ever said it. He gave his heart to Clinton High School.
“This is a great night, because memories don’t change.”
At halftime of the game that came after Rhodes’ Celebration of Life, District 56 announced that the on-campus CHS baseball-softball complex will be dedicated in Coach Rhodes’ honor.
In addition to Bridges as the ceremony’s master of ceremonies, a video tribute was presented by Jimmy Webb, Andrew Webb, Scott King, Chris Wofford, Louie Alexander, and Corey Fountain, and speakers were: Keith Richardson, Dr. Keith Bridges, Terry McGowan, Sean McCarthy, and Mark Young, representing Coach Andy B. Young.
“He was his own man, and he wanted things done his way,” said Richardson, who first met Rhodes at the former Florida Street School.
Richardson said he dressed for the occasion in Clinton High red and white, but also in red, white and blue in honor of Rhodes’ service to the nation in the South Carolina National Guard.
Dr. Keith Bridges, whose professional career spanned over 30 years with Coach Rhodes, remembered Rhodes and his brother Donnie took care of their mother, traveling often to Whitmire; and then when Rhodes’ daughter, Lawry, was old enough, she took care of her mother, with Bill Rhodes close beside. “These are the kind of people we want,” he said. Rhodes’ military training gave him the discipline to always get the job done, Bridges said. “Teachers, the door was always open, … you knew that he had your back” he said.
Dr. Bridges recognized the people who were with Bill Rhodes to the end – “The legacy lives on, as long as we are here, and our children are here, I know they are going to hear about Coach Rhodes.”
Terry McGowan, a two-time state champion with Red Devil football, said, “Coach Rhodes, to me, was an angel and my spiritual father.” He credits John Farmer with getting him involved for the first time in organized sports; but, he said, as a young man, “I was totally out of control. I was out of control in school, and that’s how I got to meet Coach Rhodes.”
McGowan said Rhodes’ influence started with him in the 9th grade. “I was always late and, finally, Coach Rhodes had enough. He pulled me into a bathroom and said, ‘Boy, you need to get your (act) together, … you can do something with this football.’ I didn’t even start on JV, but he saw something in me.”
McGowan said he wishes more administrators and coaches would understand, as Rhodes did understand, that all trees do not bear fruit at the same time. McGowan said he could not play baseball, and he wished he could because Coach Rhodes loved baseball; but he called Rhodes every step of the way in his son’s baseball career.
Sean McCarthy – who Buddy Bridges called the son that Coach Rhodes never had – said he came to know Rhodes at age 23. He was student teaching and Henry Simmons “felt so sorry for me” that he was determined to get McCarthy a job and matched him with Rhodes. He described painting the kitchen in a small house in Whitmire that Rhodes owned and rented – “we walked into the house, and the inside was worse than the outside” – as a test of his work ethic. McCarthy said he passed the test – and the house was torn down 3 days later.
Buddy Bridges said the day McCarthy’s Red Devil Baseball Team won the State Championship was the happiest he had ever seen Coach Rhodes.
McCarthy praised Rhodes for a lifetime of service – “he expected you to do what’s right and keep your word” - and he explained Rhodes’ unique way of snapping his fingers, and accomplishing a task.
Mark Young, representing his dad, Andy B. Young, a Rhodes coaching and business partner – they are honored with a special Red Devil shirt as “devilish duos” – said many in the audience, mentored by Coach Rhodes, had heard these light-hearted, but effective, words before, “You can’t be that damn stupid,” drawing laughter and applause from the crowd.
Rhodes and Andy B. Young forged their friendship at Florida Street School, and it was a partnership that endured for more than 50 years.
Attendees at this ceremony were encouraged to consider a no-gift-is-too-small donation to the Bill and Judy Rhodes Scholarship Fund; and they received a red-and-white rally towel, printed by Carolina Stitches, with Rhodes’ favorite Scripture: If you have faith as small as a mustard seed … you can move mountains.
After Young’s comments, wrapping up an hour and five minutes of remembrance prior to the Red Devils’ 7:30 p.m. kickoff, Bridges told the audience in the gym (what used to be the Clinton High School main gym, now the Clinton Middle School gym), “There’s only one thing left to do. Beat Mountain View Prep in honor of Coach Rhodes.”
