The 30-Year Itch

Before the three decades of dedicated service, before the 34 conference titles, before the bike rides and the speeches and the awards, there was only the word of Janet Mason. Back then, before the bus detours and the ear piercings and the hallway scouting, the 24-year-old version of Ray Suddreth had precisely one thing going for him.

“Hire the Appalachian guy,” Mason said.

And so it began.

Five presidential administrations later, Suddreth's joints are failing him. And for an active coach - someone who prefers the “do-ing” over the talking - it's tough. No longer can he run alongside his athletes. No longer can he measure his team against his own capabilities. Twenty years ago, he knew he had a strong squad when the boys kept up. Ten years later, the girls began to beat him. Those yardsticks don't work anymore.

For the last three years, Suddreth has ridden a bicycle alongside his runners to keep pace. Shouting instructions from atop a two-wheeler, Suddreth manages to stay involved.

But the pain is still there, and it isn't going anywhere.

So Ray Suddreth wrapped up his 30th season as the Hibriten track and field coach Friday. It will be his last.

He was 24 years old when he came to Hibriten High School, a freshly-minted Mountaineer. He wasn't planning on staying long.

He had other hopes, other dreams, other desires. But in the end, one passion conquered them all.

He only took up track and field because he wasn't good enough to play high school baseball. When a longtime friend and shot putter asked him to give it a whirl, Suddreth obliged.

Things progressed from there.

In the summer of 1975, he enrolled in a track and field methods course, where his passion solidified. He pole vaulted for the first time. He threw a javelin. He high jumped. He hurdled.

Years later, he taught himself to throw a discus in a parking lot at Kings Creek School. With nothing but an open book by his side, Suddreth would turn and throw on to an empty practice field. His audience was no one.

And he was hooked.

You know how this story ends.

Suddreth excels as a coach, guiding his track teams to 24 conference championships - 13 for the girls, 11 for the boys. He wins a state title in 1998.

He finds more success in the cross-country realm, leading the Panthers to another 10 conference crowns.

He oversees 11 individual state champs and 32 runners-up in his time at Hibriten. He wins the Conference Coach of the Year award 14 times.

The accolades pile up, until you cannot see anything but a giant mass of recognition.

But for the people who know and respect Suddreth, his coaching expertise is merely an ancillary benefit. Ask them for a favorite Suddreth moment, and they are more than likely to tell a story that takes place outside the boundaries of track and field.

Derek Ellington was born in Charleston, S.C., to a 17-year old mother. She raised Derek alone, with several stepfathers coming and going along the way. She was an alcoholic, as was the man she married when she moved to Lenoir. Derek was in middle school at the time.

When he enrolled at Hibriten in 1982, Derek didn't know anyone. That is, until the J.V. basketball coach took him under his wing. Suddreth, who was doubling up on his coaching duties at the time, took a special interest in the young man.

“He gave me an identity, a chance to belong,” Ellington says. “He could yell and scream at you to get back on defense, but at the same time, he always knew when to put an arm around you and tell you everything was all right. I don't know what I would have done without him.”

Suddreth became a mentor, someone who provided encouragement, discipline and an open door to a child who had never seen such things.

“Coach Suddreth was the first stable father figure I ever had,” Ellington says. “Anybody in his right mind would have given up on me after that first month, based on pure athletic potential. But he didn't do it for that reason. He did it because he saw a kid that needed to be saved. And it was a direct result of his influence that I turned out OK.”

Ellington ran track and played basketball for four years, eventually attending Erskine College in South Carolina on a full basketball scholarship. While he was there, Ellington single-handedly founded Erskine's track and field team. He spent the first year as the only team member (with no coach), traveling around in a van with just the field equipment by his side.

Nowadays, he runs his own business in Raleigh.

“I owe it all to Coach Suddreth,” he says.

Rosalyn Hood was a member Suddreth's 1998 state championship team, a versatile, do-it-all athlete who ran everything from the long jump to the sprints to the hurdles. But like Ellington, her fondest memory of Suddreth comes from an instance off the track.

One night, Hood ordered lasagna at a post-race meal with the team in a fancy, sit-down restaurant. Unfamiliar with the texture of the “white, crumbly cheese,” otherwise known as parmesan, Hood sensed something was wrong when she bit into something hard. Before long, she realized that she had chipped one of her back teeth. What she thought was the cheese was actually an untethered molar.

When he realized Hood didn't have the money for a trip to the dentist, Suddreth stepped in (with some help from other Hibriten faculty members). Before long, Hood had her first-ever dental appointment and a brand new filling.

“I don't know how he got it set up or paid for, but that was my first trip ever to the dentist,” Hood says. “And that's the kind of stuff I remember most about Coach Suddreth: Chewing on my own tooth because I thought it was cheese, and him taking care of me.”

Ray Suddreth always has had a thing for stories.

For runners, he tells the story of Brandon Coonse, the Panther who wore corrective shoes as a child and overcame a funny-shaped left leg to become a state champion. For hurdlers, he recalls the work ethic of Tom Austin - a competitor who would throw his hurdles over the surrounding fence in frustration, then calmly pick them up and go back to work. Suddreth's head is stocked with these types of tales, a lifelong database of athletic experience.

It is only fitting, then, that he is remembered in terms of story.

Laura Todd-May remembers the time Suddreth drove the whole team on a bus to wake an oversleeping athlete. Coonse remembers the time Suddreth lost a bet and had to get his ear pierced. Brett Hilton remembers how Suddreth literally recruited him from the hallways during wrestling practice.

Though Suddreth's presence may not, these types of stories will endure.

Suddreth won't completely disappear from the track and field scene (“He can't stop,” says his wife Belinda). He expects to be back in some smaller capacity next year after sitting out the required six months that comes with retirement.

But the 2008 team closed out its season Friday, and, for the first time in more than 20 years, Suddreth wasn't there to see it (He was attending his son's college graduation).

And somewhere in Greensboro, someone had to be wondering: ‘Where's that Appalachian guy?'

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