ELIZABETHTOWN — Shriners don’t give up easily.
And that makes guys like Robby Priest their kind of man.
The East Bladen head coach has been named an assistant for North Carolina in the 2019 Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas high school all-star football game.
Priest was named an assistant for the 2017 game, then diagnosed with cancer the day before Thanksgiving. Surgery 11 days before the game ended a year spent evaluating players and planning with coaches.
The Shriners told him not to worry, they’d get him on the staff for the 2018 game, but after a couple of coaches meetings while undergoing chemotherapy, Priest said his energy level forced him to bow out.
“Third time is the charm,” Priest says.
The North Carolina head coach, Reidsville’s Jimmy Teague, said the same thing. And Lindley Ivey, a Shriner from Greensboro with the Amram Temple who is president of the Shrine Bowl Board of Governors, said if anything disrupts this year, Priest will be asked to coach again next year.
He’s 65-25 in seven seasons leading the Eagles. Priest began at the school as assistant in 1997.
“There’s a whole lot of meetings and combines, and looking at tape,” Priest said. “There’s just a lot of work that goes into it. Then you get to the last week, where you get everybody at your position — I wanted to be there.”
Instead, he was in a hospital awaiting surgery for colon cancer. Then came chemotherapy through the first eight months of 2018. Late in the fall, he learned he was cancer-free. Checkups since have been good news.
Teague’s other assistants are Reggie Lucas of Wake Forest, Antonio Moore of Northeastern, Shane Lewis of A.C. Reynolds, Tad Baucom of Sun Valley and Norman Weeks of Asheboro. Lucas and Moore were chosen for last year’s game, but each of their teams made the state finals that were played the same weekend as the Shrine Bowl due to Hurricane Florence rescheduling.
“Nobody on the staff am I really familiar with,” Teague said. “Hopefully it’ll be a bunch of new friends.
“Three of the guys have been through the process. That’s a plus for me, they know what to do and what not to do.”
Seniors from North and South Carolina are chosen to participate in the nation’s oldest high school football all-star game. The Shriners Hospitals for Children specialize in helping burned and crippled children. Care is given regardless of a family’s ability to pay or their insurance.
“Not every coach gets to coach in a game like that,” said Patty Evers, East Bladen’s athletics director. “So for him to have the opportunity to, do it again, to have the opportunity, it says a lot about the Shriners and what they do, not only for children, but for coaches across the state.
“He’s been through a lot, but he’s been here everyday. I don’t think a lot of people could do what he’s done. He worked during that time. He’s been a trooper, that’s for sure. I’m happy for him.”
The game was played for years in Charlotte’s old Memorial Stadium. It is now played in Wofford College’s Gibbs Stadium in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
One of the highlights for players and coaches during the week of practices is the trip to the hospital in nearby Greenville to visit children.
“I think it’ll be cool. At least I’ll have something to talk about,” Priest said. “I’ll be able to relate, where somebody else might not be able to. I can get on their level.
“I’m honored they invited me back.”
That was never a question, says Ivey, who is also an assistant athletics director at Page High School in Greensboro.
“He is such a great individual,” Ivey said of Priest. “When he called me, he was devastated, not only because of his health situation at the time, but because he was having to decline. It hurt me.
“But knowing him like I do, and one of the reasons he was picked was because of his character. He is an awesome individual.”
Priest says the same about the Shriners.
“They didn’t have to do that,” the coach said. “They could have said he had his run and so be it, but they didn’t. They make sure I get to experience the whole thing.”
Teague is looking forward to meeting Priest, the rest of his staff and assembling the team.
“It’ll definitely be an honor to participate, all the good work they do for the kids,” Teague said of the Shriners. “That’s what its about. We get competitive, but we know what the real benefit is — it’s for the kids.”
East Bladen head coach Robby Priest, addressing his team following a 2018 playoff loss to Beddingfield, has been named an assistant coach for North Carolina in the annual Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas all-star football game.