High school football coaching legend Buck Godfrey dies at age 83

William “Buck” Godfrey, the Southwest DeKalb football coach who won 274 games and earned induction into four sports halls of fame, died Saturday. He was 83.

Southwest DeKalb confirmed the news late Saturday on social media.

A head coach from 1983 to 2012, all at Southwest DeKalb, Godfrey won more games than any other coach in DeKalb County Schools history. He stands 16th in victories all-time in the Georgia High School Association and eighth in the highest classification. Godfrey is the winningest Black football coach in state history.

Damien Wimes, a former player who later coached on Godfrey’s staff and became Southwest DeKalb’s head coach for six seasons, called Godfrey “a renaissance man,” noting his mentor and close friend studied at Columbia University, taught English and wrote five books.

Wimes said Godfrey epitomized the coach who made it about more than football.

“That wasn’t just folklore with him,” Wimes said. “He truly cared. If he saw people off track, he’d talk with them and mentor them. He’d give kids his time or money or attention. When I was in college, he proofread papers for me. He’d do that for a lot of people. He had kids staying in group homes who graduated college.”

One of Godfrey’s favorite sayings was “More than Victories,” so much that it became a team motto.

“Because a winner or loser can never be determined by numbers on a scoreboard,” Godfrey told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a 2016 interview. “There is no better classroom for teaching our children than a football field. What a guy or lady is doing 10, 20, 30 years down the line is the measurement of success.”

Southwest DeKalb football coach Buck Godfrey (left) talks with his players before dismissing them before a practice in 2009. Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com

One of Godfrey’s books was “The Team Nobody Would Play,” the story of his 1955 Little League All-Star team from Charleston, South Carolina, that was not allowed to advance to the Little League World Series during segregation. The team’s story was featured in an exhibition at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Godfrey left his native South Carolina and played football and baseball at Delaware State and later attended Columbia and New York universities.

Godfrey came to Georgia in the early 1970s and coached at Gordon and Towers in DeKalb County before getting the Southwest DeKalb job.

Southwest had good teams before Godfrey, but nothing like what was to come, as the Panthers became an immediate state power under the new coach and won 12 region titles over his first 18 seasons.

In 1995, with future NFL and Georgia quarterback Quincy Carter as its star player, Southwest DeKalb won the Class 4A championship, beating Parkview 14-7 in the final.

Godfrey’s teams never had a losing record. Godfrey had at least 299 of his football players get scholarships, according to DeKalb County Athletics.