ELIZABETHTOWN — Russell Priest has been a baseball guy all of his life.
In his younger days Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese and the Dodgers were his favorites. To this day, he remembers them fondly. He’s still a Dodger man, a fan of generational talent like Clayton Kershaw, but the favorites for more than 30 years have been the ones he coached as Cougars and Eagles for East Bladen High School.
In 1986-87, he became head coach at the school on U.S. 701. Though he won’t be the head coach on the diamond off N.C. 87 when practice opens in a little under two weeks, he’s grateful for all the game has given him — the greatest of which has been the relationships.
“We had some good seasons,” Priest said. “I was lucky: I had good players. They practiced and they worked hard.”
Pending the Board of Education’s expected approval at its meeting next week, the field at East Bladen will be named in his honor. The school board is also expected to approve naming the gym at Bladenboro Middle for Junior Nance. Dr. Robert Taylor, superintendent of Bladen County Schools, confirmed both actions are in the works and shared the news with Priest.
“He told me they were going to name the field,” Priest said. “I said, well that’s great, I appreciate that.”
It’s more than fitting. Priest said he was an assistant for about six years before taking the head job. Taylor and others say there’s been success story after success story since, both on and off the field.
His contemporaries and those he reported to in the school system agreed that when a Russell Priest team took the field, the opponent would be challenged no matter the record or the talent pool.
“His teams always played hard,” said his friend Kim Cain, a former head coach at West Bladen for eight years who not only coached against him but also, as a teenager, played sports with him. They were teammates in adult softball for about a quarter of a century.
“They looked like they were always prepared,” Cain said. “He turned out a lot of good players. He had a lot of talent.
“He coached 40-some years. His teams were always competitive, hard to beat. When you went to play them, you knew they’d be ready.”
The personality of the teams mirrored the coach known as something of a firebrand in his youth.
“They wouldn’t back down from you,” Cain said, “and he always put a good product on the field. When you coached against Russell, you knew you had to be prepared. You had to stop the running game, and they always swung the bat well. He always had kids that could hit.”
Sandy Thorndyke, head coach at Fairmont for 26 years and who played football in the eighth grade for Cain at Orrum, remembers his first year coaching and meeting Priest before the game.
“He told me it was going to be his last year,” Thorndyke said with a chuckle. “So for about 25 years, I’ve been expecting him to retire or get out of it. He’d laugh every time I’d bring it up. He’d be coaching today if he could I’m sure.”
Priest is known for his wit. His friends and family say he’s a good sport who will take just as much as he’s willing to dish out.
And there’s some truth in the jest shared by Thorndyke.
“The coach, I think he retired,” Priest said of his promotion to head coach. “He was ready to retire, I knew it. I stayed on there. I wasn’t gung-ho about coaching because I had a body shop, and I was messing with that.”
Priest was an assistant on the Cougars’ 3-A state title team in 1982. In what was his finale season a year ago, the Eagles had the deepest advance of any Three Rivers Conference team when they reached the 2-A Eastern semifinals, or fourth round.
He also helped coached football for a number of years, and he’s served as county commissioner since 2010.
“I don’t know of too many coaches that stay in it 40 years anymore,” said Patty Evers, East Bladen’s athletics director. “Russell is fun to work with. He always complimented you. He’d always help me work on the fields, wouldn’t let me carry or lift anything heavy. He related well with coaches and officials. He’s very witty. The baseball field is always immaculate. He kept everything in tip-top shape.
“The biggest thing about Russell, he helped his players. He always put his players first.”
Taylor, Cain and Thorndyke agreed.
“The community is more than overwhelmed with what he has done,” Taylor said. “To give 45 years to a community, to see so many kids move through the program and have success both on the baseball field beyond Bladen County and just being successful in life — we just can’t thank Coach Priest enough for what he has done for the community. We recognize it has been a tremendous dedication of his life to this community.”
The coach’s roots were grounded in discipline and hard work.
“We practiced everyday about three hours on the baseball field, infield and outfield,” Priest said of the routine. “We’d take them in the gym when it rained, and we’d put the cages up and hit. They were well-coached.”
And his teams were never a slouch, even if the record said otherwise.
“You knew it was going to be a fight anytime we played them,” Thorndyke said. “They were always well prepared, and played hard. It wasn’t like you’d go there or they’d come here and it’d be an easy game, no matter what the records were.
“When I started, only one team would go to the playoffs. There were several years we were 11-1 or 9-2 or something like that and we didn’t get to go because the last game of the year we played East Bladen and they beat us. There were years we’d have two losses and they’d both be to East Bladen.”
Cain, a coach of 40 years, said he was in the first graduating class of East Bladen in 1972. He remembers Priest a few years ahead of him, “a great player” as a catcher on Elizabethtown Yellowjackets teams coached by Charlie Regan. He was an end on conference championship football teams.
“It’s going to be different without Russell,” Cain said. “I think they will continue to be pretty good. But it’s going to be different. When you thought of East Bladen, you thought of Russell.”
Grant Pait, an assistant the last five years, is Priest’s successor.
“I’ve learned a lot from Coach Priest,” Pait said. “I’ve known that man all my life. I’ve always looked up to Russell Priest.”
So have many others.
“The one thing you recognized about Coach Priest is that he loved what he did and he was completely dedicated to the students,” Taylor, the superintendent, said. “I’ve seen him give of himself personally, both he and his family, to students that may not have had material things, may not have had the love of spiritual things that they needed. For Coach Priest, what he did was beyond baseball. It was about loving kids.”
Priest recalls many examples, including a prospect now in the Yankees organization. He said with his wife Doll, they helped him through his high school days to include a few meals, studies, even a cap and gown for graduation.
“You feel good about that,” Priest said. “He appreciated it.”
Cain and others tell similar stories.
“He’s always been a fixture in the community,” Cain said. “He’s a great person, one of my dearest friends. He’d do anything in the world for you. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He’s a friend to Bladen County.”
The kind of coach for which any parent would be fortunate to have his son play.
“I’ve had a good career,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it. I worked hard.”
On and off the field, his players’ success in life is a lasting legacy.
The baseball field at East Bladen is expected to soon bear the name of Russell Priest, head coach since 1986-87 dating to the school’s days when located on U.S. 701.