By Sarah Nagem
snagem@salisburypost.com
LANDIS ó When Barry Lipscomb began to twirl a whistle around his finger Thursday afternoon, the South Rowan High School football team knew what was coming.
“I’ve got one last time,” Lipscomb, the defensive coordinator at South, said in the school’s gym.
And with that, he blew the whistle.
Football players scurried off the bleachers and ran to their coach in a hurry ó an exercise in discipline they’ve been using during practice all season.
And just like they do in practice, the players dropped to the ground for 10 up-downs, which are painful-looking movements that involve going from a standing position to a push-up and back up again.
For Lipscomb and his players, it was an emotional moment.
The 35-year-old coach won’t be blowing his whistle and demanding up-downs next season. As a staff sergeant in the Army National Guard, Lipscomb is being deployed overseas for the second time.
The school had a ceremony for him Thursday. All the students and staff gathered in the gym to honor Lipscomb’s service as a football coach, an exceptional children’s teacher and a soldier.
Lipscomb graduated from A.L. Brown High School in Kannapolis in 1992. He attended Elizabeth City State University, where he played football. In 1996, he graduated with a degree in psychology and a minor in elementary education.
He joined the National Guard two years later.
“At the time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” Lipscomb said after the ceremony. “I wasn’t ready to teach yet.”
While serving in the Guard, he started working at Kannapolis Middle School.
In 2003, he was deployed to Iraq, where he transported supplies and artillery to American forces.
He spent 14 months overseas.
When he returned, Lipscomb went on to teach and serve as an assistant football coach at Central Cabarrus High School until 2007.
When he resigned, South’s head football coach, Jason Rollins, sent him an e-mail asking him to take a job here.
But Lipscomb knew he would be deployed again for at least a year. Rollins told him he didn’t care ó the school wanted him anyway.
“You took a chance on me, knowing or not knowing what you had in store,” Lipscomb said during the ceremony.
For that, Lipscomb presented Rollins with the Patriotic Employer Award, which recognizes employers who support members of the National Guard and National Reserve.
Rollins has supported him in other ways too, Lipscomb said. Every Wednesday, the head coach let Lipscomb miss the junior varsity practice so he could watch his 12-year-old daughter Aria cheer at Kannapolis Middle.
Ever dedicated, Lipscomb returned in time for the varsity practices those days.
But Rollins said it’s not just Lipscomb’s commitment to the team that makes him so special.
“You get a lot of coaches who know a lot about football and not a lot about how to treat kids,” Rollins said. “He knows both.”
The students understand Lipscomb ó on and off the field, Rollins said.
“He puts that extra zing in it that brings something out in kids,” he said.
Lipscomb said he will earn a master’s degree in special education in January through an online program.
During Thursday’s ceremony, Traci Anderson, the exceptional children’s director at South, gave Lipscomb a prayer blanket that women from her church made.
When he wraps up in that Raiders-red blanket, Anderson said, “We hope that you will feel the arms of your South Rowan family.”
Don Knox, the principal at South, said the school will light a red candle in Lipscomb’s honor every day he is gone.
Lipscomb’s wife, Natasha, lit the candle during the ceremony.
And in another act of reverence for a man who likes to blow a whistle and demand up-downs, the football team is dedicating next year’s season to Lipscomb.
A picture of the defensive coordinator, along with a statement of support for the Guard and Reserve, will hang in the team’s field house.
Players will pass the picture on their way out before every game, Rollins said.
For many players, saying goodbye to Lipscomb was hard.
“He’s a great coach,” 16-year-old Justin Hall said. “He pushes us to do good everyday.”
The physical pain is worth it, Steven Erwin, 16, said.
When asked how many up-downs Lipscomb forces the team to do, Erwin replied, “As many as he wants us to do. And yeah, we might not like it at the time, but we love him.”
Lipscomb, accompanied by his wife and their two children, said he was honored by the ceremony Thursday.
He will come home on leave once during his deployment.
“Hopefully it will be during football season,” Lipscomb said.