Cancer has taken another life way too soon.
Former Piedmont baseball head coach and football defensive coordinator James Blanchard passed away on Friday morning. He was 59.
“We lost a great man today, but the impact and the influence he’s had on kids will be felt for a long time,” friend and former Piedmont/current Westbrook Christian head coach Steve Smith said. “I ask that we keep the Blanchard family in our prayers. It’s obviously a tough time.”
When I heard of his passing, I couldn’t help but think of some of the memories I had covering his coaching career.
I remember the last time we talked. It was the first of June. He and his son Bayley were in attendance at the Cherokee County Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which included former Bulldog football coach Steve Smith.
I could tell the disease had taken its toll on him. He had lost weight and could barely speak, but there was no way he was going to miss Smith’s induction.
“Coach Smith is like a brother to me,” Coach Blanchard told me in an article I wrote back in 2010 for his receiving the Alabama Football Coaches Association Class 3A Assistant Coach of the Year. “He lets me do what I want to do on defense. It just means the world to me to know he trusts me that much.”
Smith said the feeling was mutual.
“Coach Blanchard was an integral part of all the successes we had. He was family to me,” he said. “He was just like a big brother. He was very loyal and committed to doing his part in the organization. You could always count on him to do his part and then some.”
Blanchard spent 17 years at Piedmont, where the Bulldogs won 198 games before he followed Smith to Westbrook Christian this past year. His defenses also helped Piedmont win five Class 3A state championships, earn two state runners-up, and claim 10 region championships.
That success also carried over onto the baseball diamond. Blanchard was also Piedmont’s head baseball coach for eight seasons (2009-16), in which he guided the Bulldogs to new heights in that sport, including a Class 3A state runner-up in 2012.
In 2011, Blanchard was diagnosed with tonsil cancer. He underwent chemo and radiation treatments during that season, which forced him to turn the coaching reigns over to then-assistant coach Matt Deerman.
But Blanchard battled back to coach the Bulldogs again in 2012. Piedmont posted a 29-11-1 record and finished as state runner-up to Trinity for the first time in the school’s baseball history.
Blanchard wasn’t just a great coach who loved his players. He also loved his family – even when they played for the other team.
Prior to his arrival in Piedmont, James was the offensive coordinator at Cherokee County High School from 2003-06. He helped lead the Warriors to the 2005 Class 3A state championship game before he departed.
Little did Blanchard know that Smith was going to put him coaching the other side of the ball.
“I admired the job he did working with Coach (Tripp) Curry at Cherokee County,” Smith said. “Those who know me know I call my own offense. When I talked him into coming to Piedmont and being my coordinator, I never told him any different. It wasn’t until I got him signed, sealed and delivered that I told him he was going to be calling defense. I remember him saying ‘I thought I was going to be doing offense.’ I said ‘No, that’s what I do.’
“I could tell from watching what he did at Cherokee County that he could do the job as a defensive coordinator. Man, he committed himself to it and did an awesome job. He was a huge part of all the successes we had.”
During the 2009 football season, Piedmont played its opener in Centre at Cherokee County High School.
But this wasn’t just your ordinary Highway 9 rivalry game. That week, Blanchard had to prepare a game plan against his nephew Coty, of whom he said is “like another son to me.”
Blanchard said it was “bittersweet” playing against Coty.
“Of course we’d like to win the ball game, but I want him to do good,” James said.
Coty got the best of his uncle’s defense that night. He ran for 111 yards on eight carries and connected on 7-of-10 passes for 73 yards and two touchdowns in a 42-13 decision.
Both Blanchards went on to help lead their respective teams to their first football state titles that year – the first time the Super 7 was held at Tuscaloosa’s Bryant-Denny Stadium. Coty also went on to become Cherokee County’s first and only Mr. Football award winner before becoming a two-sport standout at Jacksonville State in football and baseball.
A few years later, Blanchard’s son Bayley made his athletic mark at Piedmont alongside his father in both football and baseball. The two shared a state championship in football in 2015, when Bayley was a senior. Bayley went on to have an outstanding career as a wide receiver at West Alabama and is now coaching at Glencoe.
“We’re a pretty close-knit family, and we’re an athletic family. We take a lot of pride in that,” Coach Blanchard once said. “It’s part of our lives. We put a lot of pride in what we do as far as sports as a family, and I guess that’s why you get the results you get.”
But even more important than results, Smith said, was the impact he made on people’s lives.
“At the end of the day, wins and losses come and go, but the way you impact people is what people remember you by,” Smith said. “I think there are a lot of people who have fond memories of the investment Coach Blanchard made in their lives.”
You can include this sportswriter as one of those people.
