28 SEASONS after leading Eastside football to its only state championship, John Carlisle said goodbye to the school he (literally) helped build.
 
In 1977, HC John Carlisle took an Eastside team that finished 2-9 the season prior — and went on one of the most improbable state championship runs in SC history.
 
As underdogs in every playoff matchup, the Eagles defeated a gauntlet of some of the state’s best teams at the time — Aiken, Dorman, and Spartanburg — to set up a matchup with Spring Valley in the state championship.
 
Eastside captured the 1977 Class 4-A State Championship with a 31-20 win over Spring Valley, and the score didn’t represent how one-sided the contest was. Carlisle played every single player on his roster in the fourth.
 
That 1977 title remains the only football state championship in Eastside history.
28 seasons later, Carlisle decided it was time to step aside from coaching. In 2005, he announced he would retire from his position at Eastside, a role he held for 31 years. He left his post as the all-time winningest HC in Greenville County, with 159 victories to his name.
 
But his wins and achievements? They pale in comparison to what Carlisle did for Eastside as a school and community.
 
When Eastside High School opened in 1970, the school struggled to obtain funding for a football facility. So, Coach Carlisle himself put a second mortgage on his home to secure the loan to build Eastside’s football stadium.
 
Carlisle and his wife, Margaret, were also among the top donors to the Eastside YMCA, helping finance the installation of new soccer and football fields at the complex for local youth.
 
The football field at Eastside is named in his honor. His name within the community is still held in the highest prestige.
 
Because Carlisle didn’t just make the unthinkable happen in 1977. 
 
He helped an overlooked Eastside Eagles program spread its wings and fly for the first time, all while changing the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of young men for the better.
 
28 days until high school football is back.