Strickland named next SC Shrine Bowl coach

Phil Strickland has earned many honors during high school coaching career. You can add Shrine Bowl head coach to the list.

On Saturday, the Newberry football coach was named the head coach of the South Carolina squad for next year’s Shrine Bowl. Strickland was an assistant for the Shrine Bowl in 2001 and was head coach for the North-South All-Star game in 2009.

“It is an absolute honor and really proud to be the head coach,” Strickland said. “It is real special what they do here at the Shrine Bowl to raise money for these children. I was an assistant in 2001 and it is a humbling experience to go the hospital and know what this game is all about.

Strickland knows picking his squad won’t be easy.

“We got a lot of good athletes here so we got to get to work and pick and chose who the best ones are,” Strickland said. “I feel like we got a good staff and I am looking forward to it.”

Strickland has won 299 games and five state titles in stops at Gaffney, Batesburg-Leesville and Newberry. The hall of fame coach won two titles at Batesburg-Leesville in 1995 and 1999 and led Gaffney to championships in 2003 and 2005-06.

Strickland guided Newberry to back-to-back state championship appearances the past two seasons.

The rest of the South Carolina coaching staff will be made up of Lake View’s Daryl King, Marion’s Leonard Johnson, Spartanburg’s Rick Scott, Hanahan’s Charlie Patterson and Indian Land’s Michael Mayer.

Notes

Lexington’s Sarah Creech was the Shrine Bowl queen. She’s a fourth grader at Sax Gotha Elementary. … The Shrine Bowl will be shown on ESPNU on Dec. 26, 27 and Jan. 1. Times are yet to be announced. … A check was presented to the Shriner’s Hospital for $2,567,920.15.

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 9:01 PM.