How Knoxville coach Bill Young's Hall of Fame career started accidentally
After Bill Young finished his career as a starting free safety for some outstanding Tennessee football teams, he was at the Miami Dolphins training camp as a rookie in 1970 with plans to enter the business world after trying pro football.
Unbeknownst to him, however, his career instead would soon focus on the business of coaching and molding high school youngsters. It would end up being a lengthy career that would take him to multiple schools as head football coach, and eventually to the Tennessee Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
“Teaching and coaching were not even on the radar,” he recalled with a laugh. “I had majored in business.”
As he recently looked back on his career in an interview in connection with his recent Hall of Fame induction, he said that he and his wife, Janet, had gotten married in 1970. While he was at the Dolphins camp that year, he realized he did not have the required speed, and maybe even the heart, for a pro football career after feeling homesick. So he ended up leaving the program on his own while knowing he would likely soon get cut anyway.
But his career in football was just getting started. After telling Miami head coach Don Shula of his plans, and Shula asking if he had thought about coaching, he quickly learned of an opportunity at LaFollette High from a former teammate as an assistant football coach and head basketball and baseball coach.
While only in his early 20s, he had already been prepared for leadership after being selected as Mr. South High in 1965. His football career with the Vols included a painful lesson about adversity after breaking his collarbone in 1967. He had played under the respected Doug Dickey, who led the University of Tennessee to several outstanding seasons in the late 1960s.
“You talk to anybody who played for him, and they have the highest respect for him,” he said of the still-living former coach. “He was quite a leader. He has a presence about him.”
After serving as LaFollette head football coach in 1971, he left in 1972 to assist a large-classification program in Sanford, Florida, and took over the head-coaching reins for eight games after the coach left.
Former UT teammate Bobby Gratz asked him to come to Bearden High as an assistant in 1973, and then Young went to South High as head coach in 1974 and 1975 before it closed and merged to become South-Young. After one year as head coach at West High in 1976, he was head coach at Bearden 1977-80 before taking over at Oak Ridge High 1981-87.
Oak Ridge had perhaps the highest-profile program in the Knoxville area at that time, and Young said he enjoyed it. “It wasn’t an easy job,” he said. “But it’s a really good place to coach. You get a lot of support. There is always a lot of pressure, but it was a really good situation. I enjoyed it.”
From 1988-2001, he coached back at Bearden before helping get the varsity program started at Christian Academy of Knoxville 2002-06. The Tennessee Football Coaches Association site says Young had a 199-156 career record and made 17 trips to the playoffs at the various schools.
When he was inducted along with several other coaches as a member of the 2022 class, Young said the Feb. 18 induction at Ensworth High in Nashville was touching, as was learning that he had been selected. “It was kind of a surprise but obviously something that is a fairly big deal to me to be recognized by my fellow coaches,” he said.
While Young served at many schools, he taught the same subject of math – specifically algebra and geometry – everywhere he has been. Upon retiring as head football coach at CAK, he continued as a teacher for several years, and still teaches a couple of math classes in the mornings at Knoxville Christian School. Despite the numbers on the calendar telling him he is now in his mid-70s, he has not tired of working with numbers in a textbook, he said.
And he greatly enjoyed his career in coaching, despite its almost accidental start. He credits his wife and daughters, Eileen Boroughs and Anne Thomas, and their families as being very supportive over the years.
Regarding any advice he would give to would-be football coaches, he said he would encourage any young person who is ready to commit fully to enter the field.
“It’s a great life,” he said. “You have to be willing to spend a lot of time doing it. But I would encourage anyone to do it if you want to be around kids and help them.”
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knoxville coach Bill Young's Hall of Fame career started accidentally
