(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Speaker] At break you said, "Hey guys, guess what?

You've gotta- - He was my fraternity- (speaker mumbles) (speaker mumbles) - [Speaker] For us now, she lived in trafficking for four years.

(upbeat music) - [Speaker] I really felt for a lot of reasons, I felt that I didn't have the guts to say no.

- [Speaker] I'm seeing too many smart kids on (mumbles) - [Speaker] Ultimately, there will be rewards, you're literally (mumbles) - If you followed Southern High School football in the 80s, 90s, and the early part of the 21st century, it's likely you know the name, Carl Madison.

In fact, it would not be a stretch to call him high school football's Paul "Bear" Bryant.

In short, Madison was a winner, and he left a lasting impact on many of his players.

One of those, Clint Crockett, a publishing executive and author has written a book and chronicled much of Madison's football life in the book entitled, "The Chief: Carl Madison's Life in Football."

We're pleased to have Clint Crockett on this edition of Conversations.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

Jeff, - Tell me how this project came about.

- Well, it's been a long time coming, I can start out with that.

Around 2005 I got to the point, I think many authors probably have a similar refrain that you just got to the point where you felt like you had to write.

- Uh-huh, uh-huh.

- I've had a life of reading, and had watched my father read and write over the years, and I just felt like I needed to write.

And then it occurred to me, who is the most interesting person I've probably ever known, and it took me about two seconds to realize it was Carl Madison, my old high school football coach at Tate.

So I began the process in 2005, I called him.

I think I'd spoken to him once in the 20 years prior to that.

I told him I wanted to write a book about him.

He mentioned he was coaching that weekend in Kansas at the Native American All-Star game.

I told him I would be there.

I drove from Tampa to Kansas and- - Wow!

- Spent time interviewing him, and that began the process, and here we are 17 years later.

- Well, what was it about Carl Madison as a person that made...?

Why did he make such an impact on you, and for that matter the other players?

- Well, and that's a good question because I don't think many of us realized the impact that he had on us as we were playing for him or as we were on the practice field for him because he was intense, we were all scared to death of him, even though he was 5'6", maybe 145 pounds.

But we realized later the discipline that he instilled in us and through many of us in our careers, whether it were, was as a businessman or a doctor, I had a classmate who is a army general.

Just good common working people that he had instilled something in us that drove us and helped us be successful in life.

- What was his life like growing up?

- He had a tough background, he grew up in Atmore, Alabama, very poor.

His parents split up when he was in high school, and he actually moved away before he started his high school career.

And then a family, that the people from the high school wanted he and his brother to come back just because they were such good athletes.

So they asked his parents if they would allow them to move back and live with another family in Atmore, but he grew up in poverty really.

- Mm-hmm.

- But his parents agreed that it was okay for them to move back, and he spent two or three years living with a family, a local family there in Atmore who had a couple of twin brothers that were on the team with the Madison boys.

- Yeah, so even he was just such a great athlete that they wanted him back, and then he was able to kind of parlay that into just success in life across the board, I guess, huh?

- Right, right.

- Yeah.

- And even then it was a tough battle for him, he spent some time, he went to college, played college ball at Texas Tech originally, left there after a couple of years, he was in the National Guard during the war.

- Mm-hmm.

- And then was outta school for awhile, but then eventually went to Troy University, Troy State at the time, played a couple years there, which really led into his coaching career.

- Yeah.

Did he always wanna be a coach?

- I think so.

I mean, he would tell you that he probably thought that was all he, that what he would be the best at.

- Right, right.

- And that's what led him into coaching.

- What do you think made him a great coach?

- Well, he was a perfectionist for one thing.

And I think anyone who ever played for him would tell you that that they have vivid memories of running a play over and over and over again.

The "Run it again!"

refrain is something everyone who ever played for him would recognize.

So it wouldn't matter, if one person made a mistake in a play in practice, it would cause it to be run again, that person might correct their mistake, but then if someone else did something incorrectly- - Right.

- We would continue running the play, so that he was... Everyone who coached against him would tell you he was a brilliant offensive mind as well that he knew the place to run, that he could formulate a game strategy better than just about anyone at that level, and that led him to great success.

- Did he ever have any desire to go past high school and moving to college?

- He had some opportunities.

- Really?

Mm-hmm.

- He had a couple of offers to join college coaching staffs, but he was making more money as a high school coach.

- Uh-huh.

- Some of the places he went, they... For a high school football coach, he was compensated well because they wanted to keep him.

- Wow!

- So he turned down those opportunities and stayed in the high school ranks.

- Interesting.

Let's talk a little bit about his career.

So he played football as we talked about at Atmore.

Did he eventually coach at Atmore or in the area at Ernest Ward maybe?

- He coached at Ernest Ward, he actually started his head football coaching career at Ernest Ward.

He spent three years there, didn't have a single assistant coach, but in interviewing him for this project, he told me that was probably the best thing that could have happened to him because it forced him to learn how to coach the offensive line, how to coach the defense.

So, yeah, he did coach in that area.

And eventually came back to Ernest Ward for a year at one point during a transition period in this career.

- So to get people an idea, Ernest Ward is a very small school, but it is kind of in a rural, I guess, I would call it a farming community.

- Right.

- North of Pensacola.

- Right, yeah.

- Yeah.

- And Ernest Ward a few years ago was dissolved and became Northview High School- - Mm-hmm.

- They combined Ernest Ward and Century High Schools.

- And where did he go after the Ernest Ward?

- He went to Milton.

- Okay.

- He went to Milton High School, that was his first big coaching job in the early 1960s.

- Okay.

And to lay the groundwork for the people who may not know.

So Milton once again is a, I call it a Bedouin community of Pensacola to the east of Pensacola, and is a growing area now, but at that particular time would be considered kind of a smaller town, but he had a great deal of success there, correct?

- He had a great deal of success that... His period, I think it was 1960 to 1965 there had winning seasons, had a couple of undefeated seasons then.

People know him for state championships that he won.

- Right.

- And we'll talk about some of those, but his coaching period at Milton, they did not have state playoffs in Florida until about halfway through his time at Milton.

So he had a couple of seasons that he likely would have been state champions had they had state playoffs at the time, but that prevented him from accomplishing that and adding that to his overall total.

- I know in the book you went back and talked to some of his players from back in the 1960s, I guess.

- Yeah.

- You've dug back and he...

Even those guys, he had still strong impression.

- Yeah, Mickey Broxson was a star running back at Milton in the 1960s, and he talked about how scared they were of him.

And Mickey was a big, strong fellow- - Yeah.

- But he was, even he was intimidated about playing for Coach Madison.

- Is it my understanding that Mickey was so impressed and felt like he made such a imprint on his life that he actually had his son go back and...?

- He did.

- Okay.

- He had a son, and that I think his son, by then he was out of the Milton.

This is when Carl Madison came back and coached at Milton in the 1990s.

His son was in a different district, but they worked it so he could play.

And as far as I know, he was the first second generation player for Carl Madison.

- Wow!

Wow!

Have there been others since that you are aware of?

- I don't know that there have been.

- Okay.

- Honestly.

There's some people that he coached against in the early Milton days who played for Tate.

Walraven and Halfacre both had sons who would later play at Tate for Carl Madison- - Okay.

- But played against him in the 60s.

- So let's talk about, so he is at Milton, had a great deal of success there.

And then what happened after that?

Where did he go after Milton?

- He left and went Forest Park, Georgia.

- Okay.

- Had a little...

I think he had a change in leadership at the high school at Milton, and he'd been exploring some other opportunities.

He was frustrated that they were having such success, but by then they did have state playoffs, but there was a point system at the time, and you couldn't advance to the state.

There were just two classifications, there was single "A" and double "A".

They were a single "A" school, and one of the top schools in the state regardless of classification, but there was a point system to get to the playoffs, and it involved the playing bigger schools and the number of games you played.

And he really had a hard time scheduling teams to play him.

There were not many people wanted to play him, and if they didn't have to, they just wouldn't do it.

- Right.

- So even he had undefeated seasons where he couldn't go to the state playoffs, and that had weighed on him.

He saw an opportunity to go to Georgia and ended up going to Forest Park, which was outside of suburban Atlanta.

- Did he have success there?

- He did.

He in his third year there took the team to state championship, which they had not had success at all before he got there, but he had great success and... - And I guess, probably people of our age certainly and above, probably remember him most for the success that he started having with Tate High School because Tate High School, again, and I'm just trying to reference this because in today's world, people watch this show online and whatnot, but Tate High School would be, again, north of Pensacola, but was a large school.

- Sure.

- And certainly a dominant presence in high school football.

So how did he get to Tate, and what happened?

- Yeah.

- He wanted to get back to Northwest Florida, I mean, he considered that his home, even though he grew up in Atmore, he... From the years in Milton and Ernest Ward, he just, he liked the area.

Tate needed... Tate had had a pretty good tradition in the past, but they were coming off a one win season.

They needed a head coach, he jumped at the opportunity there in 1971, and won one game his first year at Tate.

Won his first game as Tate head coach, and they didn't win another game, I think they tied their last game of the season.

So it took a little while to get things going, but it wasn't long before he had built Tate into the dominant program in the 1970s, for sure in the Pensacola area.

Although they struggled in the playoffs for many years- - Yeah.

- They got knocked out in the first round by some good teams, including some Gene Cox, Tallahassee Leon team that was, Cox was...

When Madison and Cox both retired, they were the two winning as coaches in Florida high school football history, so.

- Wow!

- And they had some really good battles while he was at Tate.

- How many years was he at Tate?

- He was at Tate 11 years.

That was the longest single stretch he ever coached at one school.

- Hmm.

- He ended up coaching at Milton more years total because he had two separate times there.

- And which year did he win the championship at Tate?

- He won in 1980.

- Okay.

- And that was, Tate at the time was a four "A" school, that was the largest classification in Florida then.

No Pensacola school had ever won a four "A" state championship.

They got on a role, had an outstanding team, and just blew through the playoffs.

- Yeah.

- And beat a good Miami Columbus team in the state championship game.

- Yeah.

What was the environment like at Tate High School in those days?

If I would have gone to a game, what would I have experienced?

- Yeah, well, I can tell you, I was a freshman that year that they won the state championship and played for them a couple years after that, but it was the pep rallies I can remember from game days, the entire student body being in the stands, and the band playing, and everyone cheering.

And then when it got to Friday night, you would have 10,000 to 14,000 people in the stands.

It was often on live television, it was pre-internet days, so.

- Right.

- And not as many television stations, so Friday nights, not just at Tate, but in Pensacola in general in the 1980s, you wanted to be- - Yeah.

- At a high school football game.

- Well, people talk about Texas, and how high school football is a big deal.

And, of course, I know that it is, it's a huge deal in Texas, but they may not completely realize what a huge deal it is and has been in Northwest Florida, (Clint mumbles) and it was a big deal.

And I think you mentioned in the book, if I'm not mistaken, not only did he had the championship football team at Tate, they had a great band, it was the Tate- - Yeah, the band.

- Showband of The South.

Yeah.

- It had a- outstanding tradition, and they were grand national champions that same year.

- Yeah.

- So it was something we were really proud of, had a good relationship between the team and the band.

Carl Madison, the head football coach, and Bill Slaton, who was the band director at the time, they discussed what would provide for a great atmosphere.

So it was really, a really exciting time.

And the school also was voted "The Most Spirited School" in the country- - Right.

- That year as well.

- So you get there, you get to Tate, and did you all along wanna play football, or you just get there and get caught up and (mumbles) - Yeah.

Well, it was interesting.

I grew up kind of in the scenic hills area close to the University of West Florida where my dad was a professor.

So I went to Ferry Pass Middle School, and most of my friends went to Woodham High School.

So I got to Tate as a ninth grader, I really didn't know many people, and decided not to play football that year.

At least at Tate I played for the Ensley Chiefs team.

(Jeff laughs) And because I had played for them for years, and so- - Okay.

- Yeah, but eventually, and I talk about this in the book.

Carl Madison is the first person, or the only person in my life, I can remember exactly the first thing they ever said to me.

I was walking through the halls, I'd made the baseball team later in the year, I was walking through the locker room, and he looked at me and said, "Why aren't you playing football?"

And I said, "Well, actually I planned to play coach, and I'm gonna get going."

He said, "Well, let's get you into football PE class."

- Hmm.

- So that started it for me, but I knew I would play football eventually there.

- Right, right.

What was it like when you first went out, and he is the coach, and you know he's got this commanding presence, you know he's got the success.

What's it like as a player?

- Yeah.

- A young player at that.

- Right, yeah.

Well, I think I was just excited to be part of a program coming off a state championship, and being a 10th grader, which... And fortunately was selected to be a part of the varsity team as a 10th grader, which was- - Hmm.

- It wasn't super-unusual, but there weren't a lot of us- - Yeah.

- That were able to play on the varsity as a 10th grader, and not that I was starting or anything, but I was proud to be on the kickoff team for the first play of the game- - Right.

- Of the defending state champions but... Yeah, we walked on eggshells a little bit- - Yeah.

- With Coach Madison, and really his entire staff.

I mean, everybody was intense, they expected you to win, they expected you to perform well, so you didn't wanna make mistakes.

So it was ingrained in your head to be on top of your game through practices and the games.

- It is kind of interesting.

So you were a wide receiver, and we had some photos up there in the background- - Yeah.

- In your three-point stance, right (mumbles) (Jeff laughs) - (mumbles) days long ago.

Yes, when the receivers had to be in the three-point stance, so yes.

- You talked about the impact he had on players, talk about the impact he had on his coaching staff.

- Mm-hmm.

Well, they all were successful because he was successful, and he was really good, I had... Keith Leonard told me, Keith was his quarterback at Tate on the state championship team, and later an Assistant Coach at Pine Forest on his state and national championship teams.

He told me that he was really good at figuring out the strengths of the people that he worked with.

Some people may be better at administrative things, and he he would give them that role.

I mean, they would still coach on the field, but he would really give them that responsibility.

Others might be strong, have strong defensive minds, and he would utilize them in that regard.

They really had a close family bond as the coaching staff did a lot of things together that I didn't realize at the time, I don't think the players realized that at the time as well, but those people are very loyal to him those who coached with him.

I interviewed some of them for the book, and they just still think so highly of him, and the difference that he made in their own lives.

- And several of them went on to coach themselves, correct?

I mean, as far as head coaches.

- Right.

- You are right, and he had success.

- Yep, Mike Bennett is at Escambia, Keith Leonard later coached at Tate for awhile as the head coach, Mike Sherrill was the head coach at Woodham for awhile, and many others have been assistants.

And Steve Campbell who played for him- - Uh-huh.

- Coached in the college ranks for many years, won a Division II national championship at Delta State, won a Mississippi junior college national championship.

So, yeah, he has a coaching tree.

- Yeah, kind of the double-check thing going on there, yeah.

- Right.

- And Pollard too, right?

- Right, exactly, yeah.

- From Pine Forest.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Pollard succeeded him at Pine Forest.

- Yeah, Jerry Pollard, right?

- Right.

- Yep, yep, okay.

- Yeah.

- Talk about those Pine Forest years because he had the championship at Tate and he had a lot of success, goes to Pine Forest and set the stage here to give people an idea that Pine forest and Tate were huge rivals.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so here comes Carl Madison who had been successful (laughs) at Tate, and now he is- - Right.

- The coach at Pine Forest.

Take the story from there.

- Sure, yeah.

It's interesting how he got to Pine Forest because he was relieved of his duties at Tate a couple of years after he won the state championship in the highly controversial move.

Ralph Godwin was the Principal at the time.

- At Tate?

- At Tate, right.

He later became the Principal at Pine Forest, and after Madison had gotten back in head coaching, spent one year at Ernest Ward, the Pine Forest job came open.

He called Carl in and asked him, if he'd be interested in coaching.

And Carl said, "Well, you never should have let me go the first time around."

- (laughs) Yeah.

- So they were happy to get back together, and Pine Forest had had some success.

Matter of fact, the two years before Tate won their 1980 state championship, Pine Forest had lost in the finals, the two years before that, but after that had been a long time since they'd even been to the playoffs, and Godwin wanted to experience that type of success again.

Pine Forest had had a fairly decent record the year before Madison came back there, and had a pretty good season his first year, but the second year is when they put it all together, had a one loss in the regular season, but just got on a role in the playoffs, won a state championship there, had some outstanding players.

Rodney Blunt was on that team that went on to play at Clemson, Anthony Toler was an outstanding running back as well.

Then the following year, they just went through the regular season, they were ranked in the top five in the country most of the year.

I think they were ranked number four with about two weeks left in the season.

It looked like they were gonna finish high in the national rankings, but it didn't appear they would have a shot and be national champions.

And there was a week that the three teams above them around the country, I think one was a Texas team, one was a Georgia team.

I can't recall where the third was, maybe a California team.

They all lost in the same week, so going into Pine Forest's semi-final game, they were the number one ranked team in the country.

And put it together, one going away in both that game and the championship game to be the first Florida team to ever be named USA Today National Champions.

- Wow!

So state championship, and then another state championship, and tacked on top of that the national championship at Pine Forest.

- Right.

- So why leave?

- I'm glad you asked.

And he still regrets this a little bit because they had a strong team coming back that year.

- Yeah.

- He felt like they could win it again another time.

But the way the Florida Retirement System worked at that time, and how much tenure he had, it would have cost him money to stay in Florida, so he made the decision to leave, and take a job.

He looked around, considered Texas, considered Alabama and Georgia, eventually decided to go to Westover, Georgia, and coach.

- Okay, but he eventually came back.

- He came back, he was only there one year, and took care of the whole retirement situation.

- (laughs) Yeah.

- And could come back to Pensacola with no penalty at all.

And he came back to Pensacola High School, and spent a year there.

Yeah.

- Yeah, okay.

- Yeah.

- And then I want... Because we're getting kind of close on time here, I want to get into, towards the end of his career he went to, was it Jackson State, which was a- - It was Jackson Academy.

- Jackson Academy, I'm sorry, - Right, yeah.

- Which was a private- - Private.

- School.

- Mm-hmm.

- And won championships there.

- Won championships there, and that to me maybe the most remarkable thing of his story.

He went to school that had not won a game, and I believe...

Certainly the year before they'd not won.

It had been maybe two, almost two seasons since they'd won a game.

- Yeah.

- And took them the, they lost the first game that he coached them, and then got on a winning streak, lost a game later in the year, but they won the state championship his first year there, and then followed it up with an unbeaten season to win another state championship.

It was second year.

- So let's put this in perspective.

State championship, Tate High School; state championship, Pine Forest High School; national championship, Pine Forest High School; two championships at a small private school.

- Yeah.

- Five championships overall.

- Right.

- In different environments, and competitive levels.

- Right.

And none of those places that he went were they experiencing great success.

- Yeah.

- But I think that's what sets him apart from a lot of the coaches.

There are coaches who won more games than he did.

- Right.

- The high school coaches, there are those who had the higher winning percentages, or won more state championships, but I don't think anybody did it quite the way he did it doing it at that many different schools, and taking over programs that were not successful, and leading them to incredible success.

- I mean, he had to build the team and- - And he liked that.

- He liked that, he was a builder, yeah.

- I mean, when he went to Westover, Georgia, and had opportunities at a bunch of different schools, he chose the one that was the least successful.

- Wow!

- That's the one that appealed to him because he felt like he can make a difference there.

- Well, how's he doing now in his later years?

- He's doing fine, I saw him earlier today, he's living here in Pensacola at an assisted living facility, but still physically sharp.

Memory probably not as good as it once was, but I think that- - That's right.

- Speaks for- - (laughs) Yeah.

- For many of us in that regard, but he is excited, he is looking forward to getting reaction to the book, and where Tate is going to honor him later this year.

They dedicated the... Or they named the field in his honor- - Mm-hmm.

- In the off season, and they're gonna officially dedicate it to him in October, and put a plaque out there to recognize his accomplishments also.

So he is excited about that, and I think his family is excited about it, and a lot of his former players are as well.

- Yeah.

What was your favorite part about writing the book?

- Learning... Well, my time with him because I'd over the years spent many different occasions with him.

From driving to Kansas, I met him in a casino in Philadelphia, Mississippi one time.

He and his old coach and buddy, Floyd Adams, who coached with him football, and was also the head baseball coach at Tate.

They enjoyed the casinos.

(Jeff laughs) So I drove over since I lived in Mississippi and met him there, but just there's so much I didn't know about the man.

I knew about his success, but I didn't...

I knew it was complicated, and that was part of the appeal to writing the book, but there were... Yeah, he is a compassionate man, and I appreciated learning that about him and just...

He told me at one point that there he had many players that he just wanted to pull aside and say, "You know what, I really like you."

But he didn't feel like he could do that, he didn't wanna single people out, but just the fact that he felt that way- - Right.

- Was a surprise to me- - Yeah.

- And something I enjoyed learning.

- For you personally, do you have another book on you?

- Oh, not if it takes 17 years, (Jeff laughs) (laughs) like this one.

I mean, I'm still writing some.

- Okay.

- I do some writing for an Ole Miss sports site.

Maybe, I won't rule it out, but I'd like to enjoy this one- - Yeah.

- For a little bit.

- Yeah.

Would it be sports?

So if you did it, do you, or you...?

- Probably.

- Yeah.

- I think it probably would be sports related.

- Yeah.

We got about a minute or so here left, but what do you think the impression, the ultimate impression when it's all said and done that Coach Madison will have left?

- Well, I think people will realize what a winner he was, and what a difference he made in other kids, young men's lives.

His son, Sky, talks about that.

In one of the first interviews I ever did, he told me, he said, "Sometimes we thought maybe he was selfish because he wasn't spending as much time with us, but we realized that he was put on this earth to make a difference in other people's lives who may not have a father."

I think that's what he'll be remembered for.

- Clint, thank you so much.

- Thank you, Jeff.

- Clint Crockett is the author, the name of the book, "The Chief: Carl Madison's Life in Football."

And as I mentioned earlier, he was clearly an icon in football in the Southeast in the 80s, 90s, and the early part of the 21st century.

By the way, you can see this and many more of our conversations on the PBS Video app, and at wsre.org/conversations.

I'm Jeff Weeks, thank you so very much for watching.

I hope you enjoyed the program.

Take great care of yourself, and we'll see you soon.

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