Ray "Dirty" Wedgeworth

Walter Raymond “Dirty” Wedgeworth was a member of the first Marshall County High School football team to beat Albertville. The 1927 team was undefeated, including the 6-0 victory over the previously unbeaten Aggies.

Mama called her little boy “Dirty” because he would insist on storing his fishing bait in the bathtub and under the kitchen sink. Ray Wedgeworth was the “Tom Sawyer” of the Tennessee River.

He went to Southern Military Academy at Greensboro and played center there until Birmingham-Southern’s coach persuaded him to come there.

Wedgeworth was inducted into the Birmingham-Southern Sports Hall of Fame in 1997. In his induction presentation it was noted, “If Wedgeworth had played in today’s modern day of football, he would be billed as an Iron Man.” In 1934, Wedgeworth led BSC to an unprecedented level of success, an undefeated 9-0 season. He played a critical role in each of the victories despite a broken ankle, broken finger, two cracked ribs and a broken nose. Wedgeworth made the most important play in perhaps the biggest win in BSC history. His second-quarter fumble recovery against Auburn led to the only score of the game and the Panthers upset the mighty Plainsmen 7-0. He finished his football playing then went to Jacksonville State and received his degree. There was a short tenure as BSC freshman coach. Football was disbanded at BSC prior to World War II. The school has never reinstated the sport.

Coach Wedgeworth would be an assistant coach at Guntersville before head coaching at Scottsboro and Dadeville. There were also coaching stops at Geneva, Notasulga, Hanceville and Gadsden. In 1947, he became the defensive coordinator at Jacksonville State University. The team went undefeated, including a 7-0 victory over Florida State, and led the nation in defense.

Labeled a “defensive genius” by Head Coach Don Salls, Coach Wedgeworth coached his 1947 defense to the record for fewest points allowed per game at 4.2 and fewest yards per game rushing at 56. Both are still on the record book at Jax State. The 1948 team lost only one game. Four Gamecock teams won bowl games in 1948, 1949, 1950 and 1955. The ’55 Gamecocks shut out their first six opponents and beat Rhode Island 12-10 in the Refrigerator Bowl. Wedgeworth served as head football coach in 1953 while Coach Salls took a year off to pursue his doctorate.

Coach Wedgeworth was one of a few collegiate coaches to head coach three major sports at one school. As head basketball coach at JSU, his team was 17-7 in 1951-52 and 15-7 in 1952-53. The highlight of his basketball career was beating the University of Alabama’s famed “Rocket Eight” 67-63 in 1953.

As head baseball coach (1964-69), his teams competed every year for the Alabama Collegiate Conference Championship. His career record was 65-50. The name Wedgeworth, one of the first attached to a ballpark in the Guntersville Recreation Parks.

In 1974, a year before losing a battle with cancer, Raymond Wedgeworth became the first inductee into the Jacksonville State Hall of Fame. When Coach was laid to rest in 1975, one of the pallbearers was Mac Moss, a life-long friend and teammate from the 1927 unbeaten MCHS Wildcat Team.