GREENE COUNTY
At the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, former athletic director Eddie Hood wanted to create something that brought Greene County alumni back to interact with current students and athletes. To do so, Hood introduced the “Ring of Honor” to the school’s culture, and now as principal, has held it for two consecutive years with the most recent ceremony coming during last week’s homecoming contest against Warren County.
Current athletic director Derrick Williams believes that the ceremony has received a lot of positive feedback and explained how the process works.
“We wanted to do something for the school that would help sign on our alumni, so [Hood] came up with the Ring of Honor. It’s kind of like a ‘Hall of Fame’ idea,” Williams said. “There were about six or seven people involved in the selection, and we had a very extensive list. It was definitely hard to narrow it down to six individuals.”
Out of hundreds of athletic alumni to choose from, Williams and company could only select a handful of people to recognize.
Even though the number of individuals that were recognized as low, Williams was proud of how diverse the class was.
Charles Turner was one of the first to be recognized and played everything Greene County had to offer. Most notably, Turner was known for being an outstanding quarterback on the first desegregated Tigers’ team back in 1970.
He went on to play football at Clarke College (Clark-Atlanta University) and later coached basketball at the high school level where he’s racked up hundreds of wins.
In terms of coaching, Greene County’s winningest coach in the program’s long history, Tom Temple, was also recognized during the Ring of Honor ceremony.
Temple led the Tigers out onto the field for 17 years from 1972-88. In that time, Temple accrued an overall record of 118-74 (63% win rate) and led Greene County to three region championships and a state championship appearance.
Another Greene County coaching legend, Charles Winslette, was recognized shortly after.
Winslette had two different stints with the Tigers, one from 1989-93 and the other from 2009-11. During his first six seasons, Winslette led his teams to the playoffs every year and is most remembered for his 1993 team that went 13-2 and won the only state championship in Tiger history.
Williams found out how special the 1993 team was to the Greene County community when he was put into a group chat weeks before the ceremony.
“When I was searching for members of the football team, I kind of got added to this Facebook group called ‘29 Years Later,’” Williams said. “I got to learn more about that team, and it was interesting to hear stories about how the team came about and some of the stuff they went through during that year.”
Along with past coaches, other past players were also recognized.
Josh Nesbitt is one of the most dominant high school athletes to come out of Greene County High School and proved why he deserved his Ring of Honor recognition on multiple different occasions.
He led the 2005 Tigers to a 13-1 record and a region championship and racked up many accolades throughout his high school career. In college, he was a bright spot on the Georgia Tech offense, and his performances there eventually led to a short stint in the NFL.
Williams experienced his talent firsthand back when he played high school ball.
“Josh was a guy I actually got to play against in high school. He was a freshman my senior year, and he was a dynamic athlete,” Williams said. “I’ll tell you he was probably the best athlete I’ve ever played against, and that’s from playing in middle school, high school, and college, definitely a special athlete.”
Overall, Hood and Williams were pleased with how the second-annual ceremony turned out, and hope to be able to continue the tradition for years to come.