A Pioneering Spirit
Vincent Medlock’s contribution to Walker High School athletics is unparalleled.
Words by Justin Hunter | Images by Blakeney Clouse
Coach Vincent Lee Medlock Sr. is a racial pioneer and pillar in the history of Walker County High School athletics who was coming of age during the Civil Rights movement and segregation in the Deep South. He was one of the first African-American athletes to don the Vikings’ black and gold in the late 1960s, and, years later, become Walker High School’s first black head coach in three sports: track, girls’ basketball, and boys’ basketball.
Medlock spent eighteen seasons as Walker’s B-team basketball coach and assistant basketball coach under head coach Phil Schumacher. He accumulated 229 wins, 124 losses, and had only one losing season during his coaching career before retiring from coaching in 2000. Longevity is the singular word that frames him in the public eye, a longevity rooted in a deep love of sports, students, and the town of Jasper.
Born in Birmingham, Medlock is the youngest child of the late Winston and Mittie F. Medlock. He and his wife, Christye, have been married 44 years and have a daughter, Shawn, and a son, Vincent, Jr. He was raised in Jasper underneath the restrictions of Jim Crow and found an outlet in sports. “My mother was a teacher and coach at Walker County Training School,” Medlock says. “As a young kid, I would go with her to all of her games. I would also follow around the head basketball coach at the training school. As a black kid, there was nothing else to do but go to the local games.”
Medlock also attended the Walker County Training School, one of several black-only schools in the area, until integration forced its closure in 1968. Desegregation happened slowly in Alabama, beginning in 1963, almost a decade after the landmark Supreme Court decision in 1954 of Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka.
Medlock helped break the color barrier in 1968 by participating on the Walker County JV basketball squad. He was one of only two black athletes to make the basketball team from the Training School. He was a basketball starter all three years at Walker High School and earned the nickname “Rim Rod” for his ability to dunk and attack the boards. During his junior and senior years, Medlock was the leading rebounder and scorer.
“My transition from the black school to Walker High School wasn’t that bad, because I was an athlete. When you are an athlete, you are accepted. Since I was accepted, I didn’t have any trouble as far as sports and school was concerned. I made lots of good friends,” Medlock says.
As an outstanding multi-sport athlete, Medlock lettered in three sports: track, basketball, and football. In 1971, his senior year, he earned third place in the triple jump at the state track and field competition and held the school’s triple jump record until one of his students broke it in 1986.
His promising football career didn’t start until his senior year, but nevertheless Medlock earned a scholarship to play football for Alabama A&M University. He was recruited as a wide receiver, defensive safety, and kicker. His football career was cut short by a left knee injury suffered while playing basketball at the school.
After the injury, he turned his full attention to academic pursuits. Initially a business major at Alabama A&M University, Medlock remembers being gripped by a TV commercial on Alabama’s shortage of special education teachers. The next morning he changed his major, and in 1975, graduated with a degree in special education.
Upon graduation from A&M, Medlock returned to Walker County and spent one year at Dora High School as a coach and educator. In the fall of 1976, he transferred to Walker High School, where he spent the next 37 years serving as a special education teacher and eventually the department chair until becoming the head basketball coach. He retired from education in 2013.
Medlock coached nearly every sport at the school for almost two decades and helped shape the lives of young men and women through athletics. He instilled into his athletes an excellent work ethic and to be the best version of themselves. “Do your best in whatever you do, not just in basketball, because you are not guaranteed to go to the next level,” Medlock says. “Do the best you can in sports and in life. Carry yourself in a way that you respect yourself and you respect other people.”
When Medlock became Walker County’s first black men’s basketball coach in 1998, he got the opportunity to coach his own son, Vince Jr. When he retired from coaching, he couldn’t leave sports behind altogether. A couple of years into his retirement, he went into officiating. He has spent the last two decades as a multi-sport officiant for the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA). He was awarded the State Finals Officials Award in fastpitch softball in 2006 and named Wal-Win Official of the Year in volleyball in 2010.
As the 2020 school year approaches, Coach Medlock is contemplating his future in officiating. “I’m winding it down. This may be my last season to officiate all sports,” he says. “I may possibly do one more run. It just depends on the stipulations placed on sports in light of the coronavirus once the schools open back up.”
Medlock’s other passion is bass fishing. “Everyone who knows me always says to me, ‘Coach have you gone fishing? Coach, when are you going fishing? Can you bring me some fish?’” he says. A member of the Goldenrod Bass Masters Fishing Club out of Birmingham, Medlock has fished with this club since 1977 and is the oldest living member.
“I’ve caught two 8.5 lb. bass and I’m trying my best to get over that hump. Once I get over 9 lbs., then I’ll have them mounted,” Medlock says proudly.
Even though full retirement is in his future and the lakes of Alabama will be calling his name, Coach Medlock will continue to be a presence in the stands, supporting the school, the students, and the city he loves. 78