Oh, Buddy!

Buddy Anderson is the winningest coach in Alabama high school football.

Anderson’s Vestavia Hills High Rebels defeated Hewitt-Trussville 14-3 at Jack Wood Stadium in Trussville on Sept. 12 to give the veteran coach his 310th win. Every one of those wins has come as coach at Vestavia Hills, where he is in the midst of his 37th season.

And that very first win, Sept. 15, 1978, was a 14-0 win over Hewitt-Trussville on the very same field.

Talk about full circle.

 “I can’t describe this,” Anderson said after a celebratory Gatorade bath and the Rebels’ customary reciting of the Lord’s Prayer. “A lot of memories just came out. I’m just thankful for all my former players and the coaches. I love them all. I’m a very blessed man.”

Anderson passed Waldon Tucker, who recorded 309 wins while coach at Demopolis Academy, Gordo and Fayette County. Tucker retired after the 2010 season, which was his 27th at Fayette County. All told, Tucker posted a 309-126-3 record in 37 seasons.

Anderson is now 310-126.

Did he ever think on that night as a teenager he felt called to be a high school coach that he would be the winningest?

“I never had a clue. I just knew He had a plan,” he said.

The plan seemed that Anderson would set the record the week before, but Oak Mountain upset the Rebels in overtime in ironic fashion. That night the son of former Rebels quarterback Danny Salchert, who led VH to the 1980 state title, caught the game-tying touchdown pass for the Eagles. Friday night, it was delayed as a ferocious pregame thunderstorm moved kickoff an hour later. 

The weather and sloppy conditions played a part in the game, but mostly it was trademark Buddy Anderson punishing running game and physical defense. Each team missed out on one good scoring opportunity in the scoreless first half.

But in the second half, Rebels quarterback Landon Crowder scored both Vestavia Hills touchdowns, a 3-yard run with 4:52 left in the third quarter and a 2-yard run with 4:23 left in the fourth. Each of those scores came at the end of drives keyed by Crowder passes. In the first drive, Crowder hit Sam Harvey for a 40-yard gain and on the second drive he hit Remington Patterson for a 37-yard pickup.

Hewitt-Trussville managed a T.J. McGettigan field goal early in the fourth quarter.

Crowder sealed it with a 22-yard scamper deep into Hewitt territory in the final two minutes, and the clock trickled down to Anderson’s Gatorade shower, which also drenched Linda Anderson, who was arm-in-arm with her husband.

Anderson said he thought his players had begun to feel the pressure of the record chase. “I think they have, and I don’t want them to ever feel any pressure. I’m just glad it’s over and we can go on to the next one.”

Crowder agreed. “I think last week I got caught up in the situation, and tonight I was relaxed, I was myself. I’ve spent as much time with Coach Anderson as anybody, and it’s so great to get this win for him.”

“I know in his heart he wanted this win, it was a big game for him,” the senior quarterback said. “He may not show it to us but he’s excited.” 

Anderson’s story is one of calling, perseverance and loyalty.

In the fall of 1972, Thompson “Mutt” Reynolds hired a young assistant football coach to help him with the fledgling Vestavia Hills High football program.

 Reynolds, who coached the Rebels just that one season before stepping into the role of athletic director, likely never expected to see his name on the school’s football stadium. And that young assistant coach, Dovey Ralph “Buddy” Anderson, said for sure he never thought his name would adorn the school’s playing field.

How he was led to coach at Vestavia Hills in the first place is an amazing story. 

“God called me to be a high school coach. I’ve been faithful to Him and He’s been faithful to me,” Anderson said. He knew the place and date that call came, too — sitting in his dad’s pickup truck on Jan. 12, 1968, in his hometown of Thomasville. 

But when he graduated from college after a football career at Samford University, nobody wanted him as an assistant coach.

“I had applied for several jobs in the area, but I kept hitting dead ends,” Anderson recalled. Frustrated and unsure about what he would do, one hot August afternoon he headed to see if financial aid might be available for graduate studies at Samford. He bumped into a former teammate at the financial aid office who suggested he consider contacting Vestavia Hills about a position. The new school’s football program had suffered a tragic blow in the summer of 1971 when a car driven by Reynolds and carrying four assistant coaches was rammed on U.S. 31 by an 18-wheeler whose brakes had failed going down the hill. All three assistants in the back seat were killed.

John Lee Armstrong, the coach who’d signed Anderson at Samford, knew Vestavia Hills Principal Johnny Howell and arranged an interview.

Anderson said Reynolds didn’t ask him any football questions. “He asked, ‘Why are you coaching?’ And I said God called me to be a high school coach, on Jan. 12, 1968. He asked me if I loved kids and some other things, but nothing about offense or defense or anything football. Coach Reynolds had a way of asking the same question a different way, and he got back around to it. ‘Well, Coach, you think you’re going to coach here four or five years and feel like you can make more money doing something else, what do you plan on doing?’

“I said ‘No, sir, God called me to be a coach, and I plan on being a coach my whole career.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Then you’re the person I want to hire.’”

Anderson did his student teaching at Vestavia that spring and was hired full time that fall to fill the spot of one of the coaches killed in the car crash. Six years later, he stepped up to the head coaching position and was on his way to induction into the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame and the all-time wins mark.