Rankin inducted into National High School Hall of Fame

Perhaps the earliest footnote in a career full of milestones and shattered records, Gary Rankin heeded the advice of his father as he first launched his prep coaching career decades ago at his high school alma mater, Smith County High School.

What was Rankin’s Plan B?

“That’s a great question, and my backup plan came from my father,” Rankin said. “When I first took the job at Smith County, that was my home school and I wanted to get around my parents who had gotten a little older. So, I went and took a real estate course in Nashville when I was the head coach at Smith County, just to fall back on.

“Fortunately, I never had to do that; I was blessed.”

With 484 career wins across more than four decades of excellence at the high school level in Tennessee, and a record 17 state championships among those victories, Rankin is being honored with selection to the ultra-prestigious National High School Hall of Fame.

Rankin was inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame as part of the Hall’s 2024 class on Monday, July 1, 2024. He was one of 11 inducted in this year’s class, which included four athletes, four high school coaches, one official and two administrators.

The inductees in this year’s class were:

Athletes

Dot Ford BurrowJoe MauerTakeo SpikesTyrone WheatleyCoachesPaula KirklandGary RankinRoy SnyderRonald Vincent

Official

David Gore

Administrators

Mike ColbreseMarie Ishida

Previous Tennessee inductees include Barbara Campbell, Rick Insell, Catherine Neely, Lamar Rogers, the late Jim Smiddy, the late Buck Van Huss, and the late Boyce Smith, all coaches. The late Bill Pack was inducted into the Hall of Fame as an official, as well as the late Billy Schrivner of Jackson and the late Ralph Stout from Mountain City. Ronnie Carter, former executive director of TSSAA, was inducted as an administrator. Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, Nikki McCray-Penson, and Steve Spurrier have all been inducted as athletes from Tennessee.

The accomplishments of all the inductees can be found online at https://nfhs.org/articles/boston-to-host-105th-nfhs-summer-meeting/.

As he recalls the ups and down of his long career — including an inauspicious 0-10 campaign in his first season coaching — no one is more surprised at this latest accolade as Rankin himself.

“When I first got the call, it was a little bit shocking,” said Rankin, No. 4 nationally in active career wins and No. 7 all-time at the high school level. “When I looked in the Hall of fame to see local guys from Tennessee, Coach (Rick) Insell, Coach (Lamar) Rogers, Steve Spurrier, Ronnie Carter; those are people I’ve looked up to for so long, watched from afar with their respective coaches and the way they handled their teams. And then to see Bart Starr, Keith Jackson, Cheryl Miller, Bill Walton, John Wooden, Herschel Walker, Walter Payton in there, and when people start putting you in some kind of fraternity or list with all those names, I know I’ve been blessed.

“It is the highest honor that an individual in high school sports can receive. I’m just so very appreciative of it, appreciative of all of our coaches along the way; winning state championships at Alcoa with my sons on the team was so important, one won four championships and one won three.”

Consistency is bedrock in Rankin’s pedigree; he is the same, trademark mustache, frequent grimace and omnipresent chewing gum, be it coaching at Alcoa, standard-bearer in all-time Tennessee state championships, as well as a long-running program for top-end collegiate talent or turning Murfreesboro’s Riverdale into a nationally acclaimed powerhouse throughout the 1990s and early 2000s; now to Chattanooga-area private school Boyd Buchanan.

Courtesy his second year at Boyd Buchanan, Rankin now has another undefeated season under his clipboard — a hallmark of Rankin’s work at each of his prep coaching stops in the Volunteer State.

Rankin doesn’t dwell on perfect seasons or winning streaks; his ability to deliver thousands of players an opportunity to win a state championship across more than 30 consecutive years, however, is an element of pride.

“Since 1991, every kid that’s come through our program till today that has stayed four years has won a state championship,” Rankin said. “Every kid that came and stayed four years won a state champ. And someone told me that for the last 26 or 27 years in a row that our squad, Alcoa or Riverdale, was ranked No. 1 in state at the beginning, in the middle or the end of the season.

“It’s just been the line of consistency I’m probably most proud of. I didn’t know anything about winning state championships, I knew a little bit about consistent programs. Gallatin High School with Coach Short is one of the programs I studied and looked at a little bit when I was getting started. They had a line of consistency winning 10 to 12 games every year, playing in State Championships periodically.

“I just thank the Lord I’ve been able to do that.”