Blaze Gillespie is an Army veteran who has logged plenty of mileage over the past couple of decades.
Now he's getting thoroughly acquainted with the Columbia area, as a Lugoff resident traveling several times each month to Wagener-Salley High School as the War Eagles' new football coach.
The new skipper, whose coaching experience includes 12 years in the Carolinas, is wrapping up this academic year at Camden High School, in Kershaw County, where the Bulldogs had a stellar football season. The team came within a few yards of the state Class AAA title, with a 49-48 loss to Daniel in the championship game.
Gillespie was the Bulldogs' special teams coordinator and co-defensive coordinator and also served as head coach of Camden's junior-varsity football team and of the baseball program.
Gillespie, in Wagener, will succeed Willie Fox in the football post, and longtime War Eagle assistant football coach Corey Erskine will succeed Fox as Wagener-Salley's athletic director.
Gillespie's home team includes his wife, Mary, and their two kids, Mason Levi, 12; and Savannah Caroline, 8.
Gillespie shared a few thoughts on his approach to football after a March 18 conditioning session in the War Eagles' weight room.
"First and foremost, I'd say I'm an open book," he said. "It's discipline, trust and love in this program, and it's culture over talent, so I look at it like a family. I treat these kids just like I do Mason and Savannah."
He currently lives "right behind Lugoff-Elgin High School" and plans to teach physical education at Wagener-Salley. "We plan to move eventually. My wife is a pediatric nurse at Children's Hospital. She's a floor manager as well, at night," he said, adding that the hope is for a situation that will help with her career advancement.
"I learned a long time ago that that woman's going to follow me everywhere, in everything I do, but it's my turn to make a sacrifice in there, too, and if it's where I live, then to keep her happy and let her do what she does and enjoy what she does, then I'm all for it, because she's an angel in scrubs, every single day."
Erskine is a relatively familiar figure at the high school, having come on board as an assistant football coach in 2017 and begun teaching at the high school in 2018. He teaches social studies.
"I'm really excited … to be able to help the kids and our school and community and our program continue to grow," he said, acknowledging that massive changes are on the horizon with the construction of a new high school set to open in the next couple of years.
Gillespie will be a major asset for the school and community, calling on an abundance of "energy, excitement and enthusiasm," Erskine said.
He added that the incoming coach "talks about the idea of the program exploding," in the sense of continuing to improve.
The new campus is to include a track, main gym, mini-gym, baseball field, softball field and an area for a wrestling team. The football stadium is to undergo major renovations in the final stages of the multi-year construction project.
