Houston Academy head football and track coach Eddie Brundidge will be among 12 inductees ushered into the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame in March during a ceremony in Montgomery.
“Man, I still haven’t gotten myself off the floor yet,” Brundidge said of the honor. “I’m absolutely floored by it. I’m lost for words. It’s one of the greatest honors I’ve ever received.”
The Class of 2024 was announced Friday morning by AHSAA executive director Alvin Briggs and Alabama High School Athletic Directors & Coaches Association (AHSADCA) director Brandon Dean.
Two other inductees have ties to the Wiregrass in football coaches Perry Swindall, who spent nine years at Daleville and led the Warhawks to the Class 4A championship in 1992, and Rick Rhoades, who coached Troy University to the Division II national championship in 1987 before going back into the high school ranks.
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Other members of the class are football coach Phillip Lolley; basketball coaches Charles “Chucky” Miller and Thomas “Mike” Boyd; wrestling coach Richard “Dickey” Wright; baseball and football coach/athletic director Ron Nelson; softball, baseball and basketball coach Christopher Goodman; administrator Kimberly Vickers.
Selected from the “Old-Timers” division were coach/administrators Frank “Swede” Kendall and Cornell “C.T.” Torrence, whose son, Jeff Torrence, is currently the principal at Pike County High School and his granddaughter, Jaala Torrence, is a pitcher on the University of Alabama softball team.
While Houston Academy’s Brundidge is more known in these parts as a football coach and a former star running back during his college days at Troy University, his achievements as a track coach were just as much a factor in being elected into the hall of fame.
Now in his 35th year in education, Brundidge, 60, graduated from Dozier High School in 1982 and Troy University in 1987 and quickly embarked in a teaching and coaching career in 1989 at Jackson High School.
He had two tenures at Jackson and T.R. Miller High School in Brewton. While at T.R. Miller, he led the track program to seven state titles while also serving as an assistant on the football team.
“It’s probably my second favorite sport and it’s one I didn’t play in high school or anything and kind of taught myself,” Brundidge said of coaching track. “Just like football, it’s a lot of moving parts.
“It’s truly a fun sport. Over the years I just tell kids, ‘If you just come to one meet,’ and then most of them will try it and once they got out there they were hooked.”
After his first stop at T.R. Miller, he returned to Jackson in 1997 and remained there until 2004, serving in several roles including teacher, assistant principal, athletics director and was head football coach for six seasons in leading the Aggies to the state playoffs in three of those years.
He returned to T.R. Miller in 2004 where he remained as an assistant football coach and head track coach before coming to Houston Academy after the 2018 school year as an assistant football coach and track coach.
Brundidge became the head football coach of the Raiders in 2021 and has compiled a 26-7 record through the first round of this year’s playoffs. Houston Academy was matched up against Mobile Christian on Friday night in the second round of the Class 3A state playoffs.
“Football and track have both been really good to me and the Good Lord just blessed me with some great kids and some great people to work for and I can’t thank the Good Lord enough for where He brought me and what He put upon me,” Brundidge said.
Brundidge was named the Alabama Assistant Football Coach of the Year for Class 3A by the AFCA in 2018 and AHSADCA Boys’ Outdoor Track Coach of the Year in 2010, 2011, 2014, and 2016 for Class 3A. He was named the Girls’ Outdoor Track Coach of the Year in 2009 and 2010; South Alabama Track Coach of the Year in 2010 and the NFHS State Track Coach of the Year in 2009.