Garry Kreis
Information from WYSH Radio
Former Coalfield Head Football Coach Garry Kreis passed away Monday morning after battling brain cancer.
Kreis played wide receiver for the University of Tennessee in the late 1960s after playing high school football at Oliver Springs. He landed at Coalfield as an assistant coach in 1979 as a teacher, head basketball coach, and assistant football coach. In 1987, he was promoted to head coach of the Coalfield football team and held that post until his retirement in 2008.
One of Kreis’ former players, our friend Brad Jones of BBB-TV, is working with local and state officials to have a four-mile stretch of Highway 62 between Oliver Springs and Coalfield renamed The Coach Garry Kreis Memorial Highway.
A second project aims to create a life-sized bronze statue of Coach Kreis. You can donate to the Coach Garry Kreis Memorial Fund to help pay for the statue, estimated to cost around $35,000, at any of the Citizen First bank branches in the area, or you can donate through a GoFundMe page at https://www.gofundme.com/statue-fund-for-coach-garry-kreis.
WYSH Radio in Clinton is an Oak Ridge Today news partner.
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