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Rick Grammer
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Photo courtesy of Jay Sailors, AHSAA.
Former Vestavia Hills soccer coach Rick Grammer, back row third from left, is one of 11 coaches inducted into the Alabama High School Athletics Coaches Hall of Fame.
If you had told Rick Grammer 40 years ago he would end up as a hall of fame soccer coach, he would not have believed you.
He showed up at Vestavia Hills High School in 1979, fresh out of college and eager to coach. He began as an assistant coach for the football and basketball teams, two sports he was relatively comfortable with. But he knew very little about soccer, the third sport he was set to coach.
“Those players were teaching me,” he recalled of his first years on the job. “The early years, I learned more than the players did.”
His humility then in admitting to his players he did not have all the answers, nor did he know everything there was to know about the sport, set the stage for a long and successful career.
“I told them up front, ‘This is new to me. I’m going to learn right there with you,’” Grammer said.
By the time he retired in 2015, Grammer had amassed enough victories and made enough of an impact to pave the way for his induction into the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame.
“It’s very humbling. It’s a great honor, but I don’t deserve it.” he said. “There’s no way without the kids I would have that honor. Not only were they good kids off the field, but on the field. I had good soccer players, so that really helps.”
Grammer was part of the 2020 class of inductees, but COVID-19 forced the delay of the ceremony until March 16 of this year, when he was one of 12 inducted at the Montgomery Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center.
All told, Grammer won 633 games coaching the Rebels boys soccer program, making him the all-time winningest soccer in AHSAA history. His teams won the state championship in 1991, 1995, 2013 and 2014. The Rebels were state runners-up in 1992, 2004 and 2007, and advanced to the semifinals in 2011 and 2012.
The Rebels won the Birmingham Metro Tournament 15 times and that 2011 squad was ranked No. 1 in the country by the National Soccer Coaches Association.
“We had a run back in the early 2010s. Around that time, we had a good run and the year we lost in the [semifinals], we were 30-0. That was a great bunch of kids. I hate that we didn’t have a state championship for them,” he said.
Grammer was part of a group of coaches that persevered for several decades at Vestavia Hills. Buddy Anderson, Peter Braasch and Bruce Evans coached football for many years. George Hatchett led the boys basketball for a long time. Steve Gaydosh was the longtime wrestling coach. Sammy Dunn had a world of success as the baseball coach before his passing. There are many others, some still at the school, and Grammer calls it a family.
After his retirement, Leo Harlan took over the reins of the Rebels program and has kept it performing at a high level. Grammer helped coach the junior varsity and freshmen teams for Harlan a couple years after he retired. He now teaches math at Restoration Academy in Fairfield.