Faith, Football, and Friendship: Remembering Steve Wilson

As another high school football season kicks off, my thoughts turn to my friend and former Gaffney High defensive coordinator, Steve Wilson. When Steve passed away unexpectedly in November 2021, I wrote the reflection below. Today, I share it again as a tribute to a man whose impact reached far beyond the football field.

It was 1991 when this tornado of a guy came blowing into Gaffney. He was a little bit wild and a whole lot of crazy.

I liked him, instantly.

Steve Wilson became one of my closest friends from the start. He arrived from Florida with new Gaffney High head football coach Joe Montgomery just a few short weeks after I became the managing editor/sports editor of the upstart Cherokee Chronicle newspaper. Our lives met at that intersection of our careers, so it just seemed like fate that we would have a friendship that would last for over three decades.

A native of Louisville, KY, Steve took me to his hometown to experience the Kentucky Derby first-hand. I remember asking him if I needed to bring a suit to wear to the races, and he laughed out loud because he knew we wouldn’t be in the grandstands with the rich and famous. We were in the infield with the party people. Steve’s people. I’m not sure we even saw a horse that day. But it was an experience of a lifetime, and to this day, I love horse racing, and my family hosts a Kentucky Derby Party each year on the first Saturday in May.

More than the Derby itself, what stands out from that trip are the people we met as we stopped by his old haunts in Louisville during the two nights before the races. Remember Norm from the “Cheers” TV show? That was Steve everywhere we went. Everyone knew him, everyone loved him, and I was welcomed as their friend simply because I was with him.

I realized right away there was much more to Steve if you simply scratched the surface a little.

He brought me into his world, so I pulled him into mine. He was a regular at The Chronicle offices each Monday and Wednesday night as we burned the midnight oil to bring those first papers to life. He volunteered with me as we produced concerts for the S.C. Peach Festival. He traveled around the country with me and the rest of the crew that put-on weekend shows and events for Hollywood’s Productions. If you didn’t know any different, you would have been sure that Steve was just another good ol’ boy from Gaffney.

And there were the Friday nights under the lights at The Reservation. Steve was the defensive coordinator for the Indians and helped lead GHS to a state title in 1992 and a Top 10 national ranking in 1993 before a heart-breaking loss in the state championship game.

It was Steve who headed up the Gaffney-Spartanburg alumni football game as part of the Peach Festival the year that Bob Prevatte Field was named at the old stadium.

Through the Peach Festival and Hollywood’s Productions is where Steve met our friend Les Gregory. Les had a personality that was the exact opposite of Steve’s, yet they couldn’t have loved each other any more than they did. After Les was diagnosed with cancer, Steve and I would visit him in the hospital and together we would give his bald head a fresh shave. We spent the entire night with Les the night before he died. He cried together when he passed away the next day. When I wasn’t sure I had the emotional stability to serve as one of Les’ pallbearers, it was Steve who stood beside me to make sure I was going to be okay.

And he was standing beside me again, as a groomsman, when I married the love of my life in 1997. His karaoke at the wedding reception was so unforgettable that people still ask me about it to this day.

A few months after the wedding, I took a new job in a new town. Steve helped load the little bit of furniture Dawn and I had in our small apartment, and he drove the U-Haul to Anderson. We had bought a used washer and dryer, sight unseen, from a couple who had a big fancy house. And because they weren’t home at the time, Steve drove that U-Haul right across their beautiful green grass to get closer to the laundry room. 

While Dawn and I were starting our new life in Anderson, Steve’s career took him to coaching jobs in Blacksburg and Cherryville. He was elected to Town Council in Blacksburg. And eventually, he moved back to coach in Louisville to be closer to his daughter and his parents.

A job at Limestone University brought me back to my hometown in 2013, and low and behold, just a few years later, that same tornado of a man who blew into town over 30 years ago was back, too.

We picked up right where we left off. After retiring from coaching, he often joined me and the WZZQ crew that carried Gaffney football across the airwaves on Friday nights. On Saturdays, he was right there with me many times for Limestone football games too, cheering just as passionately as if he were still on the sidelines.

His wild and crazy days were well behind him. He loved my family, and we loved him right back. Most of all, he loved the Lord. You didn’t have to ask him, because he was quick to tell you how God had changed his life. You no longer had to scratch the surface to find the good in Steve. He wore his faith on his sleeve, and he shared it without hesitation.

I talked to Steve for the last time this past Tuesday morning. We spoke on the phone about his surgery the day before, his prognoses for a full and healthy recovery, and we talked about the Gaffney Indians’ big game coming up.

Like he always did, as we were hanging up, he told me that he loved me. And I said the same to him.

I lost my friend a few hours later.

Steve Wilson was one-of-a-kind. He was a force of nature. He was as good a friend as a friend could have.

And today, I am missing him.

I will think of him every time those horses run at Churchill Downs. I’ll remember how much he loved the Indians each time I see those players come running out of that tunnel and onto the field.

I’ll never forget how much Steve loved life and cared about his friends. And I’ll spend the rest of my days trying to emulate that.

Just like he did on that trip to Louisville long ago, I know that one day Steve will be there to show me around Heaven.

Until then, my friend.