Cedar Hill coach Escue Rodgers joins ranks of Polk County Walk of Fame
The stories were colorful and also plentiful on a hot early July day last year. The kind of day that Escue Rodgers likely had his football team practicing in the grove near the former Cedar Hill High School.
But this was not a day for practice. It was a day to show gratitude to a man who helped shape not just the lives of the people he taught and coached, but also the community in which he served.
Over 100 gathered in the newly built Polk County Sports Walk of Fame park in downtown Cedartown on Saturday, July 2, 2022, to pay tribute to Rodgers as his bronze statue was unveiled among the rest of the athletes and coaches whose likenesses are represented.
“Today represents the culmination of six years of commitment and dedication by numerous people and organizations to make this a reality,” said Robert Baker, a Cedar Hill alum and member of the Cedar Hill Alumni Association support committee.
“Thank you to everybody who worked behind the scenes in a big way, and in a small way, as part of this journey. This definitely took a village and we wouldn’t be here today without the collective effort of everyone.”
Rodgers was a teacher and coach at Cedar Hill for more than two decades during the 1950s and 1960s. His teams won 85 trophies in 24 years in football, basketball, and track. During the time of segregation, Rodgers was named head coach of the North Team, the first ever Georgia Interscholastic Association Football All-Star Team.
Rodgers was honored during his lifetime with numerous coaching and teaching awards including Coach of the Year from Fort Valley State in 1953, Morris Brown College Outstanding Coaching Achievement Award in 1956, and the distinguished Coaching Award from the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association in 1974.
Rodgers passed away in 1978 and was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame last year after a campaign by the Cedar Hill Alumni Association. The group marked the completion of their
fundraising efforts to have the statue made and approved by the Walk of Fame committee in 2021.
The group of alumni, visitors and dignitaries contending with the sweltering midday sun in the midst of a new place to honor the legacy of the past did not lose sight of the meaning of the moment.
“To be able to honor such an esteemed person is reason to celebrate, further reason to celebrate is that coach Rodgers is the first African American person to be recognized with a bronze statue at the Polk County Sports Walk of Fame,” Baker told the crowd during his welcome.
The new Walk of Fame park was overseen by Jamie and Darcy Morris, whose family owns and operates the Doug Sanders Golf Museum next door. The unveiling of Rodgers’ statue served as
the official opening of the park.
The statue was sculpted by Cedartown native and professional artist Julia Trawick Knight, who also sculpted the likenesses of the first six athletes unveiled for the Walk of Fame — Howard “Doc” Ayers, Ray Beck, Edgar Chandler, Jimmy Hightower, Doug Sanders and Whitlow Wyatt.
She said she usually researches the subjects of her sculptures through personal stories and memories but never knew Rodgers, so she turned to those who had, including her mother.
“As an artist, I prefer to rely on personal observation but not having met coach Rodgers, I was totally reliant on the photographs that were provided,” Knight said.
After failing to find photos in old newspapers, Knight turned to going through yearbooks provided
by CHHS alumni and gathering with groups of alumni to talk about Rodgers.
“Thank you for the honor of allowing me to tell this part of your story. Through this enduring bronze sculpture thereby adds to the rich history of Cedartown, Georgia, African American heritage, and our shared experiences,” Knight said.
Several Cedar Hill alumni were in attendance as they made the statue unveiling part of their annual reunion weekend and made a point to come up to the statue after the ceremony and have photos taken.
Yahya Eli Mohammed, a member of the CHHS class of 1967, walked up to the statue and, after gazing at it for a moment, patted it on its side and said, “OK ‘Cue.”
As part of the ceremony, Cedar
Hill alum Ed Weaver presented Polk County Historical Society Museum Director Arleigh Ordoyne with the framed acceptance letter from the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and the award from Rodgers’ induction to be preserved in the museum.
A few alumni who were former players under Rodgers also spoke during the ceremony. Marilyn Edmondson, Cedar Hill Class of 1954, is a former basketball player and track athlete who presented his background and career at Cedar Hill, including meeting his wife, a music teacher named Alice White.
Edmondson confessed she didn’t know why she was asked to speak since she had been on a girls basketball team Rodgers had called
“the worst ever.”
“We made it to the district but in the finals we were massacred. I mean, we were beat so bad by Cartersville,” Edmondson told the crowd. “All the girls crowded on the bus back to Cedartown. He let the boys stay. He walked up and down that aisle of that bus, and I cannot say the words that he said. He said, “Never let anybody beat you by a hundred points ever again.’
“So I’ve taken that lesson with me through all my
education. I excelled when I left Cedar Hill and became a pretty good forward
in basketball, and I never let anybody beat us by 100 points.”