Meet Wayne Vickery, Gainesville High School’s athletic director from 1999-2015, a five time high school baseball state championship coach and an avid deer hunter. Known to many as “Coach Vick,” Wayne is what some might consider a sports fanatic and has collected sports memorabilia for years. He grew up in Hartwell, a small town on the Georgia-South Carolina border and attended the University of Georgia.
Wayne started his career as a coach in Madison County in 1978. He met Gainesville High’s football coach Bobby Gruhn at a golf tournament in the spring of 1980. Coach Gruhn told him that there was a biology teacher job opening at Gainesville High School and asked if he was interested. He was, and after moving to Gainesville, he got things started with the baseball team.
In 1996, Coach Vick won his first state baseball championship at Gainesville High and a second championship came in 1997, and again for a third time in 1998. After not making it all the way in 1999 and 2000, he came back for two more state baseball championships, earning his fourth in 2001 and his fifth, and final, in 2002. He retired from coaching in 2009 with five rings on his hand.
While Wayne was the Athletic Director, Gainesville High sports teams won several state championships in addition to the baseball championships, including one football championship, three girls’ basketball championships, four golf championships, and a soccer championship. He is now a driver’s ed instructor at the school and lives peacefully on Lake Lanier with his wife, Angela, who is a teacher at Centennial Elementary School.
We were recently able to sit down with Wayne to ask him a few questions about his life here in Hall County.
Question: What inspired or led you to your current career?
Answer: “Former teachers and coaches that I had in school.”
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Hall County, and what do you love there?
A: “I have two: El Sombrero and Senor Fiesta. I get the chicken fajita quesadilla with rice.”
Q: How long have you lived or worked in Hall County?
A: “37 years.”
Q: Who is the most interesting person you’ve met here in Hall County?
A: “Jack Bell. He is an attorney here in Hall County.”
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be? And why?
A: “Montana, for a whitetail deer hunt.”
Q: What is your favorite movie?
A: “’The Blind Side.’”
Q: What advice would you give a crowd of people?
A: “Invest early.”
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: “I would like to go out west hunting for whitetail deer for the whole month of November.”
Q: Choosing anyone alive and a non-relative: with whom would would you love to have lunch? Why? Where in Hall County would you have lunch?
A: “Gov. Zell Miller, because he has done more for teachers in Georgia than any other governor in the history of this state. We would have lunch at Longstreet Cafe.”
Q: What is your favorite thing about Hall County?
A: “It’s close to Athens, close to Atlanta, and close to the mountains.”
Q: Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?
A: “Hopefully ridin’ my grandchildren around on a pontoon boat on Lake Lanier.”
Q: (Even friends or family), what is something interesting that most people don’t know about you?
A: “I grew up on a dairy farm.”
Q: What are three words or phrases that come to mind when you think of HOME?
A: “Giving, honesty, and hard work.”
The Faces of Hall County is a project to showcase the amazing people that live or work in our community. If you would like to nominate an interesting person to be featured please email babernathy@gonorton.com.