GDW Analysis:
GOOD HOPE: Billy Joe Pugh, the winningest football coach in the history of Good Hope High School, has passed away.
Gameday Weekly learned of this through social media.
Pugh was suffering from dementia. Pugh was reported to be 83 years at the time of his passing.
Coach Pugh came to Good Hope High School from Red Bay in 1972.
He would lead Raider football through the 1986 season. Good Hope accounted for 86 wins under his tenure with 67 losses and a tie.
Coach Pugh ranks 5th in all time victories in Cullman County schools. Mark Smothers is 1st with 132, George Redding 127, Ray Talley 117, Dafford Smith 89 and Pugh at 86.
Pugh's Raiders encountered 7 winning seasons.
From 1977 through 1978, the Raiders were 18 & 3. The '77 team was 9 & 1 with the '78 squad going 9 & 2.
The '78 team opened the season with 4 consecutive victories by shutout and finished the year with 6, a school record. They were ranked in the Top 5 in the 2A poll, starting that year with 7 wins before their first loss.
Pugh and the Raiders were in the state playoffs in 1974, 1978 and 1983.
"Hard work that was displayed by coach Pugh became his trademark to make Good Hope football well known in his span of 16 years," GDW reports.
GDW remembers Pugh with the "veer offense," a formation similar to the wishbone that was used by Alabama and Texas in the 1970s.
Football was not the only sport Pugh thrived in with success at Good Hope.
He coached the Lady Raiders in basketball from 1978 to 1986. His first two years consisted of 37 victories against 5 losses and a berth to the 1979 AHSAA state tournament as a 2A semifinalist.
Pugh also coached track with the 1976 squad winning the Cullman County outdoor championship.
Pugh was inducted into the Cullman County Sports Hall of Fame in 2006. Joining him from Good Hope that year with an induction was Rosemary Brown.
Brown started coaching volleyball at Good Hope in 1978, three years after she graduated from the school.
Pugh is part of a Good Hope product with others such as Danny Welborn, Wayne Weissend, Wade Knight, Danny Miller, Michael Oldacre that coached along side Pugh in the Raider athletic program.
All of now Hall of Fame inductees.
Funeral arrangements are to be set.
Moss Service is in charge of his funeral.
Photo courtesy of AHSFHS.org
