COACH FRED GRIDER

My high school baseball coach, Fred Grider died on Nov. 4, 2010. He died at the hospital in Saint Augustine, Florida at the age of 86. He had been the principal at the high school for many years in Florida.
Coach Grider spent his early years in the Tullahoma, Tn. School system. Coach was a Navy veteran and played professional baseball in the St. Louis Cardinal minor league chain. To say coach was an unforgettable character might be an under statement. Coach was responsible for the baseball stadium in Tullahoma. He found it for sale in Alabama and got the school system to purchase and was active in dismantling and reassembly it at the present site. The stadium, Grider Stadium, was named it his honor many years ago.
Baseball was fun with coach Grider. Coach liked to pitch batting practice. You never knew what kind of ball he might throw for you to hit. He kept a tennis ball, rubber ball and a golf ball in his back pocket. Once I had a feeling that he was going to throw one of the other balls and such enough he fired a golf ball to me and I hit a hard line drive that hit him in the knee cap. Coach went down as if he had been shot!! He never threw me a golf ball again.
I was a right handed batter and had been practicing batting from the left side all summer. At practice I set up to bat from the left side and coach said," Burton get back to your side of the plate. " "Coach let me try to hit from this side, He threw me a pitch and I hit it over the shop in right field and he said, " Burton you should have been batting that way  all along. From then on I was a switch hitter. In a game I was on second base and coach gave me the steal sign to steal third. As I slide into third I was out by a mile. Coach gave me a hard time saying he didn't give me the steal sign. I had to run 50 laps at the next practice. I didn't miss any more signs.
Tullahoma Braves was a semipro baseball team that played other teams in the middle Tennessee area and coach was the manager as well as the catcher. Coach sure could play and hit a baseball better than us young players. I played third base on his team for two years. Coach didn't like to lose.
After my high school days coach worked several different jobs during the summer. Once he was an insurance agent. I will never forget what he told me when he tried to sell me some life insurance, "son you don't have enough life insurance to bury you in a post hole!" He also tried to be a remodeling contractor and made a mess of redoing the cedar lane market. I believe he was a friend to the owner.
The first time I saw coach Grider during a class at the old THS high school where we went as sophomores from junior high. Coach was teaching a health class and on our first day he entered the room and took an eraser from the chalkboard and threw a perfect strike and hit Jimmy Matthews in the shoulder in the back of the room with dust flying in the air. " Matthews, I don't want any trouble out of you this year!!" Jimmy didn't give coach any trouble that year but harassed all the other teachers.
I have only the highest regards for coach Grider and the things in life he taught us those many years ago. He will be sadly missed by all that came in contact with him during his 86 years on this earth. REST IN PEACE COACH.