The History of the Foley Lions to 1955

By 1924, football fever had hit Foley High School. On October 9, 1924, The Onlooker recorded these words: “Some of the boys want to try football. We may do so yet.” A week later brought forth a more confident statement. “Touchdown! Touchdown! Such is the cry on the football field now and Foley High is getting a football team together. The ball was purchased last Monday and practice has been going on steady ever since. We expect to have a game in the near future.” These were the words that greeted readers of The Onlooker on October 16, 1924 as they turned to page three. With this declaration, the long, colorful, and successful history of football at Foley High School began. According to the players, it was their idea to field the team, and they asked Harry I. West, the agriculture teacher, to be their sponsor.

Our success on the basketball hardwood coupled with the success of the football team at the University of Alabama – Alabama had shocked the nation by beating Penn in 1922 – I am sure spurred the boys on in their desire to field a football team. Clarence Younce, who had moved to Foley in 1910 at the age of three was a member of this inaugural season. He said, “A group of us boys started to talk about a football team and it just came about.” Clarence was later ordained as a Baptist minister on October 4, 1933.

Coach West may have been the agricultural teacher, but he was very qualified to assume the role of Foley’s first football coach. He had first come to Foley in 1922, and we here give a more detailed description of Foley’s first head football coach. Harry Irwin West was born in Earl Park, Indiana on March 30, 1888 to parents Charles H. West and Stella Mae Doolittle, who were both natives of Indiana as well. According to Coach West’s third and youngest child, daughter Anna Campbell, “He spent his youth in Earl Park and moved to Presho, South Dakota with his parents when he was a teenager. His father was superintendent of education in Benton County. He started the Benton County Review and was its editor for a number of years. Later he was postmaster in Presho, South Dakota.” Young Harry was very athletic. He attended Morningside College, located in Sioux City, Iowa. He was captain of the basketball team there and was also a member of the football and baseball teams at the school. His football team defeated an opponent in the fall of 1909 by the score of 116 to 0! The nickname of the 6’2” West during his college career was “High Pockets.” After graduation from Morningside in 1911, he played some semi-pro baseball.

He was married to his wife Mary Arlie Thoburn on November 12, 1912 in Harrison, Nebraska. She was born on January 29, 1889 in Ohio but had grown up in India from the age of four to 16. Her father was located there as a missionary for the Methodist church until his death. There is a school in India today named after her family. She was sent back to the United States to be educated. Harry and Mary met at Morningside where they had both graduated in 1911.

According to their daughter Anna, the newlyweds moved to Nebraska and were homesteaders there. He farmed, and they both taught school. Mary miscarried with twins and developed kidney problems later. The doctor diagnosed her as having acute nephritis (kidney disease). Since there was no medication at the time, the doctor suggested that the Gulf area would be a good location for her to be because “the water was softer.” They debated between Texas and Alabama but they had family living in Mobile, so in 1916, Alabama it was. His World War I draft registration card from 1917 identifies him as living in Baldwin County and operating his own farm. He taught at Pine Grove in Baldwin County and was later listed as a teacher at Bay Minette in 1918-19. A daughter, Ruth T. West, was born to them in Bay Minette on September 12, 1920.

Coach West left to attend Auburn where he graduated with his BS degree in agriculture education in 1922. Anna said, “While at Auburn he was active in the Agriculture Club, Websterian Literary Society, YMCA, and editor of the Alabama Farmer and was named to Phi Kappa Phi honor society.” As previously mentioned, he came to Foley as the agricultural teacher in the fall of 1922 and also served as the athletic director, coaching the baseball and basketball teams to great success. The previous spring of 1924, he had led the basketball team to a 12-5 record and the school’s first athletic championship in its history. Anna said, “My Dad was always interested in sports and quite a good athlete. After the family moved to Baldwin County in 1916, my Dad always thought Baldwin County was God’s country. He loved Baldwin County.” Oscar Rich said, “Harry West, the first coach was actually the Vo Ag teacher in Foley, and took up the coaching duties as no one else was available to do it. I do not know the financial arrangements, but I doubt if he was paid for coaching. His daughter, Ruth West, taught at BCHS in Bay Minette for years.”

The student body admired his work at the school very much. Thomas Steele said, “Mr. West has succeeded in doing great things toward building up the spirit of our school. He has had that difficult task of molding athletes from raw material, which he has done without a doubt. We feel very much indebted to him for the interest and enthusiasm manifested in our behalf.” Robert Terrell wrote of Coach West, “The school and town people feel proud of the results of his coaching. We like his spirit of doing things and feel very much indebted to him for the interest he has manifested in our behalf.”