For the Woolbrights, coaching is a way of life

Marty Woolbright isn’t upset about missing his regular Friday golf game the past several weeks in the Myrtle Beach area.

Woolbright has been on the road to see his son’s team play in the postseason. Batesburg-Leesville, where Perry Woolbright’s the coach, will play for the Class 2A state championship against Abbeville on Friday at Benedict College.

“My golf game is suffering a bit,” joked Marty. “But I am really proud of him. Just not being a coach, but father, man and husband and that is lot more important than winning.”

Marty, who coached 38 seasons at Lower Richland, Gilbert, Clover and Audrey Kell (N.C.), said he didn’t force his son into coaching, but that has been a way of life for the Woolbright family for three generations.

Cecil Woolbright, Marty’s father and Perry’s grandfather, was a hall of fame coach in South Carolina and won back-to-back championships at Chapin in 1973-74. The field is named in his honor. Marty’s brother, Roger, also was a high school coach and three other relatives were in the profession.

“My granddad told me coming up, ‘you need to be the smart Woolbright and not go into coaching and be a dentist or something and make some money,’ ” Perry said. “But I fell right into it and loved it my whole life and it has been in my blood the whole way.”

Perry said he remembered tagging along to football camp with his dad when he was 3 years old. Marty remembers his son falling asleep next to him on a hammock at football camp following three-a-day practices.

Perry was a ball boy for his dad and played quarterback for him at Clover before walking on at Appalachian State. He was a backup to Camden’s Richie Williams, and later was a graduate assistant on the Mountaineers’ first national championship team.

Perry was an assistant at Fort Dorchester and in college at Chowan before spending two seasons under Phil Strickland at Gaffney. Woolbright was named coach at North Myrtle Beach at 28 years old. He spent four years at NMB, leading the Chiefs to a 9-3 mark in 2012 before taking over at Batesburg-Leesville.

Marty was an assistant with his son for a couple seasons at NMB and still helps. He has watched game film on Abbeville and isn’t afraid to give him some advice.

“I will watch his film and send him a text that he might want to look something here or there, but he’s got to do his own things,” Marty said. “We both like to run the ball, although they like to run it out of the spread. He is a little more intense on the sidelines, but the team really has adapted to his personality.”

The Panthers went 8-3 in each of Woolbright’s first two seasons before a 10-4 mark this year. B-L won all of its four playoff games on the road and is the only No. 4 seed to make to state championship game. B-L is playing in its 15th championship game and looking for its eighth title in school history.

“You coach at schools that want to have a chance to win a state championship,” Perry said. “You want these kids to have that experience and want to mold these kids and do great things. And one of the great things about this season is a lot of people didn’t have the expectation of making it this far.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2016 at 6:13 PM.