Long time Redan High School track coach Willie Griffieth is being inducted into the Georgia Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Parkview High School on Saturday at 12:00 pm.

Griffieth is currently in his 19th year coaching track at Redan High School including a 15-year run with four state championships until he retired in 2015. He returned to Redan in 2022 and coaches flag football and track.

“It is a great honor to be recognized by my peers in track and field coaching across the state of Georgia,” said Griffieth.

A native of Vero Beach, Florida, he also had Georgia coaching stops at Monroe Area, Clarke Central, Social Circle and Lamar County during his 36 years as a Head Track and Field Coach.

Griffieth credits his high school track and football coach, the late Bill Wilson, for his trek into coaching track and his success along the way.

“Coach Wilson was a great influence on me and my coaching philosophy,” said Griffieth. “To be honest I spent 10 years in law enforcement with no intentions of coaching, but he kept after me saying I was a coach. I ended up coaching with him and we won a state title there before I moved to Georgia. I used the knowledge he gave me and tweaked things along the way, but a lot of the things I work on with the track teams are what I learned from him.”

Griffieth won boys track titles in 2004 and 2005 and girls’ titles in 2005 and 2012 at Redan. He had the rare sweep of state track titles with both teams winning in 2005.

Over his tenure he won GHSA State Track Coach of the Year awards in 2004 and 2005 along with numerous region track and publication Coach of the Year awards. He was named DeKalb County Track Coach of the Year six times and led eight teams to the DeKalb County Championship.

He coached Gatorade All-Americans Justin Oliver (400-meter) and Alesha Barber (100-meter hurdles) that went on to great college careers. Oliver went to Texas A&M and became a nine-time All-American and a member of the Aggies Track Hall of Fame. Barber was a six-time Big 10 champ at Penn State and ran in the 2008 Olympics for Trinidad-Tobago.

Griffieth’s resume also includes four state runner-up finishers, three third place finishes and 65 individual state champions. He also had 48 student athletes earn full athletic scholarships along the way.

Redan High School inducted him as a coach into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2019.