WILLIE BRADSHAW NAMED TO NATIONAL HALL OF FAME
SAN DIEGO — WIllie Bradshaw of Durham received a major honor earlier this month.
He was among 12 individuals, and the only one in the category of administrator, who was inducted in the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) National High School Hall of Fame at the San Diego Marriott and Marina in San Diego, California.
The 28th Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was the closing event of the 91st annual NFHS Summer Meeting.
Bradshaw has devoted a lifetime of service to his city and his alma mater.He was an outstanding athlete at Hillside High School in Durham and played on the 1943 football team that was unbeaten, untied and unscored upon. He went on to North Carolina College, now North Carolina Central University, and was a great athlete there, joining the NCCU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1985.
He coached at I.E. Johnson in Laurinburg, Lincoln High in Chapel Hill, and at Dudley in Greensboro before going to Hillside in 1963. He served as a coach and athletic director there for 15 years, and then was the athletic director for the Durham City School system, becoming the first black city/county athletic director,until 1991.
A former president of both the North Carolina High School Athletic Directors Association as well as the North Carolina Coaches Association, Bradshaw’s career coaching mark as a head football coach was 96-43-6, while his basketball coaching slate was 215-119 in 14 seasons. He was honored with a North Carolina High School Athletic Association Distinguished Service Award in 1992 and has also been involved at the national level with the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators’ Association.
Bradshaw was inducted into the NCHSAA Hall of Fame in 1995 and into the NCADA Hall of Fame a year later.
