Atlanta Sports Hall of FamerStudent comes before athlete, as in (student-athlete)... “I believe the key to teaching/coaching is critical thinking and my approach was different from the curriculum.” “The kids have to be challenged and learn how to speak, write and argue their points of view correctly. “They learn more about life and develop skills that will help them in the future.”“ My father told me if I started something to finish it.” “Then he said to not look around for pats on the back and go home to your family.” |
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Coach "Buck" Godfrey's jurney to the Hall of Fame was made possible by the ability to meet challenges, which were instilled in him by mentors beginning with his father, William Godfrey Sr., and including his high school coach Robbie Johnson and college football coaching greats Eddie Robinson (Grambling State University) and Joe Gilliam Sr. (Tennessee State and Jackson State universities). Part of meeting those challenges started when Godfrey was young when his Cannon Street YMCA recreation league baseball team faced the challenge of teams not willing to lose to an African American team and forfeiting instead. Godfrey has told the story in his 2008 book, The Team Nobody Would Play.
Godfrey moved to DeKalb County in 1974 to begin a slow climb from an English teacher and baseball coach at Gordon High School to head football coach at Southwest DeKalb High in 1983. He was at Towers High School in between, where he first began coaching swimming and led Towers to a second-place finish behind Dunwoody at the DeKalb County Swimming and Diving Championships in 1978. Godfrey became the first Black male teacher and coach at Towers and was the first Black head football coach at Southwest DeKalb. |
Godfrey attended Delaware State University on a football scholarship where he also played his first love, baseball.He played center field and hit .511 in 1965. Godfrey served as captain of both teams as a junior and senior and helped lead the baseball team to conference championships three times.He earned a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to Columbia for graduate school and then went to New York University on another partial scholarship. After trying out for the New York Mets and stepping into the ring to participate in Golden Gloves boxing, he began to use his degree as an English teacher in Manhattan at Spanish Harlem Junior High School in 1967.
Aside from being the first Black head football coach at Southwest DeKalb High School, Buck Godfrey was decidedly different. He changed the offense from the wishbone to the Wing-T, quoted Shakespeare and had published two books of poetry by the time he arrived at Southwest from neighboring Gordon High School. More than 200 Southwest players have earned college scholarships under Godfrey and about 160 have graduated college. |
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