Clinton Red Devils dedicate playoff win to Coach Andy B. Young as town mourns its second football legend this year

The Clinton Red Devils took the field Friday night at Wilder Stadium with heavy hearts and left with a win they dedicated to Coach Andy B. Young.

Clinton beat Liberty 63-30 in the first round of the state playoffs, two days after the death of the man who led the Red Devils to the 2009 state championship.

Two legends lost in one year

Young died Nov. 4 at his home in Clinton. He was 76.

His death comes three months after the passing of Coach Bill Rhodes, who died Aug. 3 at 88. Both men were part of the Keith Richardson staffs that brought state championships to Clinton in the late 1970s and 1980s. For a town that keeps time by Friday nights at Wilder Stadium, losing both of them in one year closes a chapter of Red Devils history.

A Clinton son comes home

Young was born Dec. 6, 1949, in Greenville, the son of the late Andy B. Young Jr. and Nettie Young. He graduated from Clinton High School and went to Erskine College on a tennis scholarship, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education. He served in the South Carolina National Guard while at Erskine. He later earned a master’s degree in education administration and supervision from Clemson University.

He started his career in 1972 at Martha Dendy Middle School, teaching and coaching football and basketball. In 1977 he went back to his alma mater. Over the next 33 years at Clinton High, he worked as a teacher, administrator, head tennis coach, assistant track coach, assistant football coach, head football coach and athletic director. He retired in 2010.

Learning from a legend

Young joined Richardson’s staff in time for one of the best runs in school history. As an assistant, he helped the Red Devils win Class AAA state titles in 1977, 1978, 1985 and 1987.

When Young became head coach in 1993, he took the Red Devils to the state championship game in his first season. Clinton went back to the title game in 2005.

The championship season

The 2009 season was his crowning achievement. Clinton beat Belton-Honea Path, Union County and Daniel to reach the Class AAA final, then defeated defending state champion Myrtle Beach 35-26 at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia on Dec. 5, 2009. It was the eighth state football championship in school history. The South Carolina House of Representatives later passed a resolution honoring the team, its players and its coaches.

Young also led the Clinton boys tennis team to a state title and coached many region championship teams. Beyond Clinton, he was an assistant coach for the 2000 North-South All-Star Football Game and the 2004 Shrine Bowl.

Carrying the tradition forward

The program Young helped build has kept winning. In 2024, Fountain led the Red Devils to their ninth state championship, the first since Young’s 2009 team. This fall, Clinton players are wearing a helmet sticker honoring Rhodes and have dedicated their season to him. Now this team carries both men into the playoffs.

In 2025, Young was inducted into the South Carolina Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Laurens County Sports Hall of Fame. The Laurens County Sports Hall of Fame now counts both Young and Richardson, the coach he served under, among its members.

Faith and family

Away from athletics, Young was a lifelong member of First Baptist Church of Clinton. He enjoyed tennis, racquetball, golf, fishing and pickleball.

He is survived by his wife of 56 years and high school sweetheart, Shirley Young. He is also survived by his children, A.B. Young IV (Joni), Mark Young (Robin Finley) and Janet Young (Chris Cash), and by 13 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his sister, Nanette Wilkie, and brother-in-law Charles “Pete” Wilkie.

More than a scoreboard

Wins and championship trophies tell part of the story. They do not tell the rest. For nearly four decades, Young took the boys who came through Clinton High School and helped shape and mold them into men. Many of his former players went on to become husbands, fathers, coaches, teachers and leaders in the community he never left. He taught them how to block and tackle. He also taught them to show up, work hard, own their mistakes and stand by the people beside them.

Those lessons did not end when the final whistle blew. They live on in the men who still call him Coach, in the classrooms and on the sidelines where his former players now lead, and in a Red Devils team that took the field Friday night playing in his honor.

Clinton has lost a coach. It will never lose what he built.