Live Oak — corey.davis@gaflnews.com



LIVE OAK-Suwannee High football celebrates its 85th season this year, having started in 1926.  

This reporter has been researching the history of all four area schools and has come across many interesting stories. I am still in need of help of schedules and scores from several years, the attached chart shows some of what I have found and still need.        

In 1939, Suwannee went undefeated in the regular season 10-0, coach Charles Duncan searched for a team that would be willing to face Suwannee in a bowl game and the coach had difficulty finding one.

“We couldn’t find anybody in the state that would play us,” Kent Baldwin (former Suwannee player from 1936-1940) told the Democrat in 1996. “Coach Kirkman of Robert E. Lee in Jacksonville said he didn’t want to because, ‘If I won I couldn’t brag about beating a little town like Live Oak and if I lost I’d never hear live it down.” “Other powerhouses from Miami and Hillsborough County (Tampa) also refused to face Suwannee.”

Finally Nutley, NJ agreed to play Suwannee at Florida Field at the University of Florida in Gainesville for a game and knocked off Suwannee 13-7.

Legendary high school football coach Gene Cox (313-100-5 overall), the state’s all-time winningest coach (recently passed by Bolles coach Corky Rogers), coached briefly at Suwannee for two years.

According to a 2006 story, in 1961 Cox, born and raised in Lake City, came to coach football at Suwannee and quickly changed his allegiance when he got here.

"I always had a real close connection to Live Oak," Cox said. "But always from the other side. Both years I coached Live Oak, we beat Lake City."

Cox was only in Suwannee for two seasons, but in the 1962 season Cox really left his mark. That was the only undefeated, untied season in the history of Suwannee football.

"That was before the playoffs," Cox said. "Everyone then that went undefeated were claiming to be state champions."

They didn't have the playoff system in 1962, but they did have bowl games. Suwannee played Daytona Sea Breeze in 1962 in the Peach Bowl and clobbered them 30-0 to cap the season. Suwannee had other undefeated seasons previously, but lost the bowl game.

Growing up in Lake City, Cox played football against Live Oak. He remembers one game in 1950 in which Live Oak beat his Lake City team. Suwannee's big All-American tackle, Jimmy Hatch, was swapped to fullback for that one game.

"We couldn't tackle him," Cox said. "The older people in Lake City still talk about that game. When Live Oak beat Lake City, it caused Lake City to lose the championship that year to Leon."

Cox went on to coach football for 28 years at Leon High in Tallahassee, where he became a legend, winning two state championships and sending more than 100 of his players into the college ranks.

Cox was known for being a hard-nosed, no-nonsense kind of coach. He accepted nothing short of the best his players had. He pushed his players with tough conditioning drills and practice routines. He wore his players out in three-a-days and then stayed after to study game films. His assistants, many of whom went on to become head coaches, did the same.

Suwannee reached the pinnacle of its program in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s winning four consecutive state titles under the school’s all-time winningest coach Mike Pittman.

From 1985-1995, Pittman went 96-36 in 11 seasons, including 11 consecutive winning seasons.

Following three consecutive losing seasons under Tony Branch, Pittman needed three years to turn the program around, guiding them to a 11-2 season and the Bulldogs first state title with a 35-7 win over Naples Lely.

Pittman followed that up winning three more state titles with wins over Key West (27-10), Hardee County (44-15) and Cardinal Gibbons (44-14); before he closed out his career at Suwannee with four consecutive playoff appearances.

Paul Landry had the unfortunate distinction of having to follow Pittman and went 0-10 in his only season in Live Oak before turning the program to Jay Walls (1997-2004).

Like Pittman, Walls had Suwannee playing in a state title game in his third season, guiding them to a state runner-up finish after losing 37-22 to Glades Central in Gainesville.

Walls (59-37), the school’s second all-time winningest coach, guided the Bulldogs to seven playoff appearances in his eight years (missing only his last year) before leaving to take a job in Tift County, Georgia.

Since Walls, left at the end of the 2004 season, Suwannee has gone through four coaches in six years, as no coach has survived more than two years.