An induction ceremony was held on Saturday honoring longtime Cedar Hill High School Coach Escue Rodgers along with others, adding their names among the athletes, coaches and famous sports figures inducted into the statewide Hall of Fame.
The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in Macon hosted multiple families and officials, including dozens of Cedar Hill High School Alumni who made the trip to watch Coach Rodgers being inducted on May 22.
Eddie Weaver accepted the award on behalf of Mr. Rodgers, Cedar Hill High School and the City of Cedartown. The city had previously named this past Saturday as Coach Escue Rodgers Day in Cedartown as well.
The longtime coach of the Panthers and many other sports in Cedartown served not only students but the community as a whole from the mid 1940s through the mid 1960s.
He now is the seventh figure in the state Hall of Fame to hail from or have connections with Cedartown. That list includes PGA golfer Doug Sanders, Coaches Jimmy Hightower and Howard “Doc” Ayers (he’s originally from Toccoa,) football players Ray Beck and Edgar Chandler, baseball player Winslow Wyatt.
Those six make up the Cedartown Sports Walk of Fame on the front lawn of the Polk County Courthouse complex in Cedartown, minus Sanders whose statue was moved to the Doug Sanders Golf Museum prior to its opening in 2020.
As a member of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, Coach Rodgers now becomes eligible to join the Sports Walk of Fame if any future expansion is possible.
Fundraising efforts to include Coach Rodgers and honor him in statue have already been underway thanks to the Cedar Hill High School Alumni group and will continue as the Cedartown Sports Walk of Fame committee comes together again to put plans into place for expansion of the current footprint on the courthouse.
Check back for more on those efforts as information about fundraising becomes available.
