The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1343401
MARCH/APRIL 2021 ■ 25 N BY TIM PEELER o one didn't see this coming. That Philip Rivers would retire after 17 seasons in the NFL, ending his record- breaking career by matching the No. 17 jersey number he wore at Athens (Ala.) High School, at NC State, and with the San Di- ego/Los Angeles Chargers and the India- napolis Colts. That the legendary quarterback would immediately take the helm of a high school football program, in a head coaching job he has trained for since the age of 6, when his father, Steve Rivers, first allowed Philip to become a water boy for his high school team in Decatur, Ala. That Rivers, in turn, would put himself in position to coach his own two sons, the first of which, Gunner, will be of junior varsity age this coming fall. That's the same point in Philip's life that Steve Rivers moved 12 miles north to take the head coaching job in Athens, a one-school town that was home to Decatur's archrival. Sure, the former Wolfpack quarterback threw in a couple of surprises, like announc- ing his retirement from football on Jan. 20, which on the Catholic calendar is the Feast of Saint Sebastian, patron saint of athletics, but the path was cleared many years ago. He had already decided where he would land. Last May, Rivers was introduced as the head coach in waiting at St. Michael Catholic School, a college preparatory private school in the Gulf Coast town of Fairhope, Ala., 350 miles due south of Riv- ers' hometown on Interstate 65. The school opened in 2016, had its first graduating class in 2020 and currently has an enroll- ment of 327 students. Rivers' family had already built a house on the coast, and he accepted the job know- ing he would begin his ca- reer when he retired from the NFL. It was j u s t a f t e r R ive r s signed a one-year, $25-mil- lion contract with the Colts, and he thought he might keep going another year or two. But after leading the Colts to an 11-5 record, a first-place tie in the AFC South and the NFL playoffs, the 39-year-old Riv- ers hung up his cleats with just enough dirt on them to wonder if he did it too early. Which is infinitely better than wondering if he did it too late. "I had two childhood dreams," Rivers said when St. Michael named him head coach. "One was to play in the NFL … the other was to be a high school coach as my dad was. How blessed am I to be able to live both of those out?" Enrollment at St. Michael — located in Alabama's biggest county, not too far from Mobile — is expected to rise, and Rivers and wife Tiffany will eventually bring with him to the football program his two sons, 13-year-old Gunner and 8-year-old Pete, plus his six youngest daughters. (Oldest daughter Halle, born while Philip was an NC State sophomore, is now in college.) The office phone has been ringing off the hook at the school since Rivers announced his retirement, even though he will not make his first appearance there until this March. At present, the school has no football field, but plans to build one after it completes the all-sports field house it started last spring. A Coaching Background, Future Steve Rivers, Philip's father, grew up in rural Alabama with an absent father, so he turned to sports for salvation. After an hon- orable mention all-state playing career at Talladega County's Sylacauga High School, the elder Rivers earned a scholarship to play football at Mississippi State. He took his first coaching job after gradu- ating and spent the next three decades — including a four-year stint as the first head coach at Wake Forest's newly opened Wake- field High School — as a high school coach. He won 152 games at three different high schools in Alabama, then built the Wake- field program from scratch — essentially the same thing Rivers is doing at St. Mi- chael — into a North Carolina high school 5A playoff squad in just four years. "All I ever really knew was ball of some THE NEXT CHAPTER Philip Rivers' Legendary College And NFL Career Has Come To An End And Now He Can Focus On His Other Lifelong Dream, Coaching High School Football PHOTO COURTESY INDIANAPOLIS COLTS