1998 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE | BERNIE WEBB
Bernie Webb of Blountville has been named to the Milligan College Athletics Hall of Fame. The Athletics Hall of Fame exists to honor outstanding athletes, coaches and other significant participants in the athletics program of Milligan College.
Webb, a 1942 graduate of Milligan, is a native of Piney Flats where he excelled in football, basketball and baseball in high school. Receiving an athletic scholarship to Milligan, Webb played football, basketball and baseball for four years for the Buffs.
Nicknamed "Spider" Webb by teammates, Webb was named Most Athletic by the student body for two consecutive years and twice made the Smoky Mountain All-Conference football team. Webb was elected vice president of the boys' M Club, a club composed of students who had won the Milligan monogram for athletic ability in one or more sports. In 1941, he was elected captain of the baseball team, having played outfield his first three years. His senior year he helped the team establish a 9-3 win-loss record. Milligan won a crucial game against LMU when Webb tripled his teammate home in the 11th inning for a final score of 5-4.
Under Coach Eyler in basketball, Webb helped lead the team to a 10-2 win-loss record. The team was observed by many critics as "one of the greatest aggregations ever assembled by Coach Eyler during his regime as tutor of champions at Milligan."
When head football coach Steve Lacy became ill, Webb was selected to replace him for the 1941-42 football seasons, coaching players he had played with only a few years earlier. In the 1941 season, Milligan posted a 10-0 record, the most wins ever compiled by a Milligan College team at that time.
Webb also signed a contract with the Johnson City Cardinals Class D Baseball League and served as a baseball umpire in the Appalachian League. He entered the U.S. Navy in 1942, serving in World War II until his honorable discharge in 1946.
In 1947, Webb landed the head basketball coach position at Greeneville High School. The following year he began teaching health and physical education and coached basketball, baseball and track at Blountville High School.
After 20 successful years of teaching and coaching at Blountville, the school consolidated with Holston High School to create Sullivan Central High School in 1969. Webb became athletic director at Sullivan Central and today still holds that position.
For 51 years, Webb has coached athletics in northeast Tennessee. He has also lent his hands and heart to various community service projects, including Little League, Babe Ruth baseball and fast-pitch softball in Blountville. For 25 years he has served as an official with the TSSAA in football and basketball.
In 1975, the old Blountville High School gym was dedicated to Bernie Webb and Elbert Humpreys. In 1991, Webb was duly elected into the Tennessee High School Sports Hall of Fame in recognition of outstanding leadership and meritorious achievements by the Interscholastic Athletic Administration Association. He was the recipient of both the 1991 and 1993 Citizen of the Year awards by the Indian Springs Optimist Club. On May 5, 1994, Webb was inducted into the NET Sports Hall of Fame.
Webb and his wife, Betty, reside in Blountville and have six children.