Meet Your Neighbor - Terry Etheredge

By Lora Carroll/The Leeds News

Terry Etheredge is a coach and teacher at Moody Jr. High School whose job extends beyond the school’s walls.

He has been teaching for over 14 years with his last eight being spent at MJHS.

“I decided to go into physical education because I wanted to have the chance to have a positive influence on kids lives,” he said. “I wanted to do for some other kid what my coaches had done for me. “

Etheredge said he loves teaching physical education because it is one environment in the school setting where he can see the kids really having fun and see their real personalities coming out.

He has been coaching for as long as he has been teaching from boys and girl’s basketball, baseball (a program he started for MJHS his first year at the school) to football.

“The thing we have been most successful in at MJHS is basketball,” he said. “My boys’ teams have won four county championships with one second place finish and my girls’ teams have also won a county championship. Both teams have a good shot at winning the county championship this year too.”

Etheredge said his coaching philosophy is making sure his athletes know they have a list of goals to achieve, but in order to achieve any of those goals they have to achieve the number one goal first. “Our number one goal is to have fun,” he said. “If it isn’t fun they will not put their heart into it, there are too many other things that kids can do these days that are fun. I believe that if you take the fun out of it, kids will burn out. Who wants to go play for someone who is constantly down on you and always yelling at you and always telling you what you are doing wrong? I try to point out what they are doing right most of the time, then hit them with how they can do some things better.”

Etheredge said that he chose to be a coach after his father passed away at the age of three. He would look up to coaches and those that served as father figures in his life. He said when he was younger he looked up to his uncle and once he got into to high school he looked up to his friend Scott Simmons’ dad, Bill Simmons. As he grew older there were also men like Coach Copeland and Coach Fairley. “Coach Copeland had the patience of Job and Coach Fairley taught me about hard work,” he said. “The two coaches I look up to the most are Coach Copeland and Coach Fairley.”

“As an adult, I really look up to my principal Ronnie McFarling,” he said. “I have learned so much about teaching and running a school from him. I guess that is why I am now headed into school administration. I have three more classes and will have my master’s degree in educational leadership.”

Etheredge grew up in Leeds and graduated from LHS in 1989. He said while he was there he met some amazing friends like Jeremy Brown, Scott Simmons and Dennis Phillips and that he learned from Coach Fairley in a triple overtime game against Jemison that quitting was not something he ever wanted to do again.

After high school, he attended Jacksonville State University where he graduated in 1996 and majored in physical education.

Etheredge married Stephanie Bailey 14 years ago. He has three daughters – Marlee, Maddie and the newest addition Mia.

“I’m blessed to be around four beautiful women everyday,” he said.

Etheredge’s heroes in life include both his mother and his wife. His mother raised three boys on her own and he said she did an amazing job as a single mom. “Two of us have graduated from college and our other brother has only one class to go and he will graduate,” he said. “My other hero would be my wife. She is one of the smartest, most beautiful women I have ever met. She has an amazing ability to multi-task. She graduated from college in three years while working part-time and having a young family at home. She did all that so that she could help us have a better life.”

Etheredge said the weather and the people are what make the Leeds/Moody area so enjoyable, adding it is one of the best-kept secrets in the state.

Etheredge said that he lives by a lot of great quotes in life, but one that stands out is by Michael Jordan, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”