Coach Satterfield returns to Greenback
Adam Delahoussaye news-herald.net
Coach Bill Satterfield is once again exiting retirement. Though he’s not returning to the sideline with a headset on Friday nights.
The Greenback Cherokees announced Satterfield as their new athletic director for the upcoming school year on Monday, April 28, via Facebook. The school says that the familiar face will be rejoining the program at the start of the 2025-2026 school year.
A LOCAL LEGEND
A local legend, coach Satterfield has four decades of coaching experience under his belt. Initially beginning in 1973, he was an assistant in both middle school football and basketball before becoming the head coach for both sports at the high school level at Vonore in 1977.
Previously, he spent 23 years as a coach at Greenback School, with 20 of those as the football head coach.
In 1987, he marched his squad through a perfect regular season all the way to a 15-0 record ending in a state championship. The Cherokees’ dominance came at a time when only three separate classifications for schools existed, with no division between public and private schools.
The Cherokees only missed the playoffs twice in his coaching tenure.
After leaving Greenback initially in 2005, Satterfield went to start up the football program at Grace Christian Academy in Knoxville, before moving to Knoxville Christian Academy as the head boys basketball coach and athletic director for a year.
He also served as Monroe County’s athletic director and the football coach at Sequoyah before leaving in 2015. Before Satterfield’s arrival at Sequoyah went from clawing their way out of winless seasons to four consecutive Class 4A playoff appearances.
In 2021, Satterfield was named to the Tennessee Football Coaching Association Hall of Fame.
The football guru, assistant principal and newly out of retirement athletic director also sits on the Loudon County Commission seat for the County’s Third District. The seat he holds presides over the city of Greenback.
His hiring announcement comes just days before the Commission vote of spending roughly $6 million on a new gymnasium and football facility.
Bill’s son, Marcus, continues to carry on the family tradition to the collegiate and professional levels. Some of his stops include The University of Tennessee, UT Martin, UT Chattanooga, head coach Tennessee Tech and the Carolina Panthers as a tight ends coach.
He is now the tight ends coach at the University of Nebraska.
It is still unclear as to whether or not coach Satterfield will return in any academic or administrative capacities once back on campus.