Sports

New Book Explores Spartanburg County's Rich Football History

Jason Gilmer's new book tells of Spartanburg County's championship teams and the smaller stories behind them.

A new book examines Spartanburg County's history of excellence on the gridiron.

Jason Gilmer recently published “Where Champions Play: Spartanburg County Prep Football.

Gilmer recently spoke to members of the Greer Touchdown Club about his new book.

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He grew up in Spartanburg County and had “always heard that Spartanburg County's pretty good at high school football.”

“I didn't really understand how good Spartanburg County was until I started doing the book,” Gilmer said. “Spartanburg County has won more state championships than any other county in South Carolina since 1950. And the number is just astronomical. I think Spartanburg County has 31 state championships during that time. Cherokee County is the next closest with 16 – 17 if you're from Gaffney because they count one that the High School League doesn't.”

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After moving to North Carolina four years ago, Gilmer began looking for ways to stay busy.

“At one point, I got bored and I said, 'Okay, I'll just write a book; I can do that,'” Gilmer said. “So I started writing a novel. I wrote about 2 pages and said, 'This is not for me. I don't get it, I can't do it, this is just not fun.' So I kept thinking, 'What should I do? What should I do?' And the only thing I really knew anything about was high school football in Spartanburg County. So I went back to my roots after a couple of years and started writing this book.”

Gilmer said he got caught up in high school sports early, while attending Broome High School. In college, he changed his mind about his planned teaching career and entered journalism.

He told Jim Fair at the Spartanburg Herald-Journal that he wanted to try writing sports.

“So he started sending me to games,” Gilmer said.

In 2000, Fair called Gilmer up and offered him a job.

“He said, 'I want to offer you the Clemson job,' Gilmer said. “So for a kid who grew up a Clemson fan, wearing orange … this should have been my dream job, this should have been exactly what I wanted to do in life. I told Jim, 'I'll take the job, but I want to be your high school writer.' Because that's what mattered to me.

“High school sports is just so important, the development of men and women, it's nice to see that it continues to do that, especially when you're honoring your athletes like the Touchdown Club is doing,” Gilmer said.

Facebook was a big help to Gilmer as he began researching the book and reaching out to former players and coaches.

“It's changed a lot in the last 15 years since I started in journalism, because we used to have phone books on our desk,” Gilmer said. “Now, no one has that any more. Now you can find any one you want.”

He assured Touchdown Club members that the book was not an encyclopedia-like tome.

“It was a fun project, to talk to players, to talk to coaches,” Gilmer said. “What I'm trying to do with the book is tell a story about how Spartanburg County became such a tradition. Right now, everyone knows what Coach Bentley's done at Byrnes, everyone knows what they've done since 2000.

“What I wanted to do is to remind people that Willie Varner was doing this in the 60s and 70s,” Gilmer said. “And I wanted to remind people when Jim Few left Greer, the success he had at Broome while he was there. I wanted to show people it was not just one of two schools in Spartanburg County that are accustomed to winning – all of them are. Now not all of them have state championships, but there's always little pockets of success, and you can find that at every school. All nine schools have had success.”

The book has a chapter about each Spartanburg County school.

“A lot of it is about their state championship teams, the region championship teams,” Gilmer said.

He said he started the book looking at “the big picture.”

“I had this idea in my mind that I wanted to show just how it happened, how everyone got good,” Gilmer said. “I started finding these smaller stories that were just as interesting.”

One of those stories is about Anthony Simmons, a Spartanburg High School linebacker who went on to play for Clemson and the NFL.

“As a freshman, Anthony Simmons was in the marching band,” Gilmer said. “So Anthony Simmons was at marching band practice and he's playing his instrument and walking around. On the field down below him is where the football team is practicing. So Anthony keeps messing up, missing notes. Finally, the band director looked at him and said,'Look, if you want to go play football, go.' So Anthony Simmons left band on that day, went down and asked to join the football. Those stories just really, really intrigued me and were fun to find out.”

You can find Gilmer's blog at goupstate.com. For more information about the book, visit here



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