Phil Isom

Phil Isom was born in Guntersville on December 16, 1955, to QVJ and Faye Isom. He attended Grassy Junior High School where he was on the school’s first football team and also played basketball. Phil went on to Arab High School where he played quarterback for the Knights under Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame Coach Buster Gross and Marshall County Sports Hall of Fame Coach Bill Morgan for two years. In his senior year, the 1973 Knights were 7-3 with Isom calling the signals for Coach Wayne Trimble’s first team at Arab.

Following graduation in 1974, Phil attended St. Bernard College in Cullman and graduated with a BS in 1977 and a MS from Jacksonville State University in 1980. During his time at St. Bernard, Phil volunteered to help coach his former teams at Grassy for two years and Arab High School for one year. Following his college graduation in 1977, Coach Phil Isom was selected by Principal Ray Johnson to coach football and basketball at Grassy and was hired by the Marshall County Board of Education on the same night that Marshall County Sports Hall of Fame Inductee Julia Casey was hired as the first female basketball coach in Marshall County. Phil coached at Grassy for three years and developed many outstanding football and basketball players who would go on to play at Arab High School. One of those players was Marshall County Sports Hall of Fame Board of Directors member, Scott Tidmore. His first Raider basketball team in 1978 went all the way to the finals of the county tournament before losing to the Guntersville Wildcats.

Following the 1978 season, Phil married Andra Honea and continued his coaching career. In 1980, Coach Isom began a 30-year career of coaching the Wildcats and teaching Driver Education. During this tenure in Guntersville, Phil was the head varsity girls basketball coach and assistant football coach under coaches Bucky Pitts and Phil Lazenby. He also coached the golf, track and field, and softball team; served for three years as the school’s athletic director; and was active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Coach Isom’s greatest successes as a coach came after he was named as the Wildcats’ head football coach in 1999. That year he was also named as the Guntersville Chamber of Commerce Educator of the Year. Phil coached the Cats for 11 years and had an overall record of 90 wins against only 38 losses. With Isom on the sidelines, the Guntersville Wildcats made it to the state football playoffs in 10 of his 11 years. He was named Marshall County Football Coach-of-the-Year six times: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, and 2009. In 2006, the Cats went 14-1 in quest of a state championship. In the playoffs that year, Guntersville defeated Ardmore, Brooks, and East Limestone in the first three rounds before facing a rematch with perennial powerhouse Alexandria, the only team to defeat the Cats in regular season. In a hard-fought, semifinals game, Guntersville defeated the Valley Cubs for the opportunity to play Thomasville in the championship game at Birmingham’s Legion Field. With the Wildcats trailing 27-21 with 7:27 left in the game against Thomasville, quarterback Chaz Rogers engineered the championship-clinching drive, marching his team 80 yards in just five plays.

Josh Gunther found a hole on the right side of the line and crashed into the end zone on first-and-goal from the 2-yard line with 5:50 remaining. Joel Svennson nailed the crucial extra point, giving GHS a 28-27 advantage.

With 1:11 remaining, Thomasville took over on Guntersville’s 40 following a punt, but Wildcat sophomore Tucker Bridges intercepted a pass near the 10-yard line. Chaz Rogers knelt on the ball to give the Wildcats the 4A State Football Championship, the only state football championship in the 100-year storied history of Marshall County football. Coach Isom was selected as the Alabama 4A Football Coach-of-the-Year following that game and was also selected to be one of the coaches in the 2007 Alabama vs. Mississippi All-Star game. In 2007, the playing field at Chorba-Lee Stadium in Guntersville was named “Phil Isom Field” in honor of this championship coach. Isom’s name will forever be linked with legendary Marshall County Sports Hall of Fame Charter Class inductees Coach Joe Chorba and Coach Percy Lee.

Coach Phil Isom retired from coaching after another outstanding season in 2009. His coaching career in Marshall County has positively influenced countless numbers of students and athletes. Phil and Andra reside in Guntersville with their four children, Ana Beth Isom, Jake Isom, Dee Isom, and Alisa (Lee) Brazelton.