Check presented to city to help pay for Sports Hall of Fame addition of Coach Escue Rodgers

The money is raised, boards have given their blessing, and now it’s a matter of waiting for work to be completed on a new statue to grace the front lawn of the Polk County Courthouse.

Cedar Hill Alumni’s Robert Baker – a former athlete as well – presented a big check totaling $30,000 during the Monday evening Cedartown City Commission meeting for officials to add to the pot to make a new addition to the Polk County Sports Walk of Fame in front of the courthouse.

With the posthumous induction in late May of Coach Escue Rodgers into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame as a legend, a quick round of fundraising being more than matched by the W.D. Trippe Foundation, his statue is in the works to be unveiled during the Summer of 2022. Baker presented the check for the money raised by the organization totaling $30,000 to help cover the cost during the meeting, then made sure that City Manager Edward Guzman had the copy to take to the bank before taking his seat before the session moved onto regular business.

Baker was one of many alumni on hand along with artist Julia Knight, who is being commissioned once again for the sculpture project honoring a longtime Cedartown coach and educator who touched the lives of many. He’ll be the seventh added to the Polk County Sports Walk of Fame.

Rodgers, who came to Cedartown in the 1940s as an educator and coach, was 59 when he passed away in 1978 having earned 85 trophies in 24 years as a coach in football, basketball and track while also acting as Cedar Hill High School’s Athletic Director.

He hailed from Piedmont, Alabama and was educated at Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta, and followed that up with undergraduate studies at Morris Brown College. He also undertook studies at New York University, the University of Illinois and Florida A&M University during his life. But his life was dedicated not just to athletics but to ensuring that those under his tutelage also excelled in academics and life.

Baker – who played basketball for Coach Rodgers – remembered him not only for innovation and charisma, but also for being a motivator.

“He was a taskmaster. He was really a domineering figure, not only on the athletic field but also in the classroom,” Baker said.

Rodgers might have demanded much from his students, but Baker said it was worth the struggle. The alum remembers having Coach Rodgers for math and science during what would now be middle school years, and how much inspiration he received while in his class.

“Fortunate for me, I went onto become an engineer,” he said. “A lot of that foundation was set in seventh and eighth grade, and he was a role model too.”

Sherri Garrett, once his neighbor many years ago, said many of her family members – sister, mother, father, uncle – was a character.

“If you could paint a picture of him, with a big cigar in his mouth chomping away, that’s what I remember. He’d get you straight in a heartbeat.”

Rodgers and Garrett’s father were very good friends, so much so they are buried next to one another. Her memories of his smarts extended past the classroom.

“If you know it, the Pinecrest area was previously owned by Coach Rodgers, who sold off lots here and there to other teachers and created a community around that area of educators,” Garrett said. “Mostly in the beginning there were just teachers living up there.”

She said that he knew how to get the most out of kids.

Albert Gibson added that he remembered Coach Rodgers told a story that always made the legendary coach “want to kick himself.”

“Because he didn’t buy the Holiday Inn stock,” he said. “He told us “I should be a millionaire right now” because it was offered to him in the early stages of his teaching.”

Gibson – who played basketball and was a statistician as well for Cedar Hill under Rodgers – said he was always interested in the students.

“I recall when he used to bring us to Atlanta and we’d play schools out of Avondale Estates and Fairburn, places like this,” Gibson said. “He’d take us to the Varsity, and take us to the predominately black neighborhoods where they had bigger schools. We were only an A school then, and back in the day there were only four A schools in Atlanta.”

Gibson said too that “I appreciated him as an individual and as a mentor.”

“He taught me not to give up. My skills weren’t the best on the team, you know. But I played a few times, I was always on the second string,” he said.

Rodgers athletic accomplishments as a coach are what got him into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, and ultimately what paved the way for the inclusion in the Polk County Sports Walk of Fame.

As a football coach, Rodgers brought home statewide championship gold in Cedar Hill’s classification in 1951, 1953, 1955, and 1957. He additionally brought home four North Georgia titles in football as well.

The Panthers Basketball squad also took a Class B basketball title statewide, and two North Georgia basketball tournament titles while he coached.

He was awarded the honor as head coach for the North team in the first G.I.A. all-star game, and also named Fort Valley State College Coach of the Year in 1953.

He received Georgia Athletic Coaches’ “Distinguished Coaching Award” in 1974 as well, four years before his death at the age of 59.

Though much of his time in athletics is remembered during his decades-long stint at Cedar Hill High School, integration in the late 1960s saw Coach Rodgers in the hallways and classrooms of Cedartown High School, where he served as an assistant coach.

He was ultimately inducted into the Cedartown Memorial Stadium Hall of Fame.

In the community, Rodgers was also a member of the Cedartown Housing Board.

In recent months ahead of his induction into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, Cedartown Commissioners, Polk County Commissioners, and PSD Board Members all passed proclamations honoring his contributions to the community and local athletics throughout his time.

Meanwhile, there’s work to be completed before Cedar Hill Alumni gather next year, according to Baker.

The school’s reunion is held every two years, and plans are for the next gathering in July 2022 for an unveiling ceremony, which is hoped will be plenty of time for the statue to be modeled and cast.

Coach Escue Rodger’s statue is planned for the same spot where the PGA golfer once stood in front of the Polk County Courthouse.

The process to get an athlete onto the Sports Walk of Fame includes induction into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame as well.