Editor’s Note: This article was edited from its original version to accommodate an event date change.
When Rick Grammer, just out of college, showed up to teach at Vestavia Hills High School in 1979, he was told that his duties would include freshman football and basketball and varsity boys’ soccer.
“His first response was, ‘Great, but what is soccer?’” recalled Athletic Director Buddy Anderson.
Thirty-three years later, Grammer is the first prep soccer coach to be selected for induction into the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame. He is one of 12 people who will be inducted June 22 during a banquet in Montgomery.
“He is the epitome of the meaning of the words ‘coach’ and ‘teacher.’ Throughout his career Rick has taught a full class load of mostly advanced level math and has actively coached at least two to three sports each year,” Anderson said in a news release from AHSAA. “Whether teaching or coaching, Rick took great pride in giving his best to his classes and his teams.
“However, far greater than his record, the way Rick’s teams played with class, discipline, heart and sportsmanship are a testament of his own character and integrity.”
Grammer, now the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s all-time leader in boys’ high school soccer wins, was an outstanding all-around athlete when he attended Huffman High School. After graduation, he went on to Jacksonville State University, from which he graduated in 1979, and later earned a master’s degree from the University of Montevallo.
After being hired at Vestavia, he started a crash course on soccer, and a career was born. Since then, Grammer and his teams have scored many accomplishments:
· Grammer has an overall record of 633-158-50, making him the all-time winningest soccer coach in AHSAA history.
· His teams were AHSAA Class 6A state championships in 1991, 1995, 2013 and 2014.
· His teams were AHSAA Class 6A state runners-up in 1992, 2004 and 2007; semifinals in 2011 and 2012.
· His teams have been Birmingham Metro Tournament champions 15 times.
· His 2011 team was ranked No. 1 in the nation by the National Soccer Coaches Association.
· He was ranked ninth nationally for victories in the NFHS National Record Book when he retired.
· He received numerous city, metro, sectional and state Coach of the Year awards.
During his career at Vestavia Hills, he also served as assistant varsity football coach, freshman football and basketball coach and swim coach sponsor.
Grammer reached his 600th soccer victory March 20, 2014, in a 6-0 triumph over Pelham.
Grammer chalked up his success to having good players.
“God has blessed me in so many ways,” he said. “These wins are not a tribute to me. They are a tribute to all these players. I always seem to get good players who are also good kids.”
In his 35 years in soccer, he said the biggest change was the improvement of the overall quality of the game in Alabama, which he said is demonstrated by an increasing number of plays from Alabama getting college scholarships for soccer.
“I really like it when a former player from two or three or five years ago comes back to see a game and talk, he said. “It’s great to learn how they are doing and think maybe our program had something to do with getting them prepared for life. That’s what it (is) supposed to be all about.”
Retired Vestavia Hills Principal Cas McWaters, who worked with Grammar for 24 years, praised Grammer’s commitment to teaching and to coaching.
“Rick Grammer’s coaching career can be summarized as one who coaches students and not necessarily sports,” he said in the release. “While it is easy to look at coach Grammer’s on-the-field accomplishments, I think his greatest accomplishment was pouring his life into student-athletes so they could learn how to be responsible citizens.”
He said schools need more coaches and teachers like Rick Grammer.
“Today, we see our society unwilling to uphold commitments, but coach Grammar demanded commitment to the team,” McWaters said. “Rick Grammer could require excellence to commitment because he exemplified excellence. He taught four periods of math each day and then continued with his coaching responsibilities. I remember coach Mutt Reynolds instilling a belief in our school system that we needed to hire great teachers who could coach. Coach Reynolds believed that great teachers would be great coaches because coaching is teaching. Rick Grammer was that kind of teacher and coach.”
