Byrd set to take over West Columbus football reins

At age 33, Pat Byrd has taken on the challenge of bringing West Columbus High School football back to respectability.

Byrd, who has been an assistant on the WCHS staff for the past three seasons, was hired last week to fill the head coaching spot left with the resignation of Vernon Brigman following last fall’s winless season.

“It’s a huge challenge,” said Byrd, who is the son of the late Billy Byrd, a high-school football coaching legend in Eastern North Carolina. “To return Viking football back to a level of success is going to require total commitment.

“The players will not only be held accountable to just themselves, but also to their teammates and the entire team structure,” Byrd said. “That is something that has gone lacking here.”

Byrd, who resides in Lumberton, feels that with any strong athletic program, it is not generally the school with the best athletes that retain success each year, but the school that is able to see that its athletes buy into the program and make the necessary commitment.

“If a player can’t come to practice every day and show up for practice on time every day, he doesn’t need to be out there.

“If a player is just going to try to get by in the classroom, then in the long run, that is probably how he is going to be on the football field.

“We have 14 seniors and 10 starters coming back from this past year’s team,” Byrd said. “Our junior varsity team finished second in the conference last season, and I’ve had six or seven kids who didn’t play last year tell me that they plan to be back out there.”

Byrd said he received a lot of support from returning Viking players when he made application for the position.

From the day he was born, Pat Byrd has been around football coaching almost constantly.

His father was a longtime head coach at James Kenan High School in Duplin County and remains the school’s winningest football coach. Pat Byrd played center and linebacker for his dad’s Tiger teams before graduating in 1992.

Byrd, whose father died of a massive heart attack in 1999, said that growing up with football and learning so much from his father and other coaches at such an early age always kept his interest in becoming a coach.

“My father actually tried to discourage me from being a coach,” said Byrd, a graduate of UNC-Pembroke, “and for awhile I looked at other opportunities, but I always realized that coaching is where my heart was.”

Byrd, who previously served on the coaching staffs at James Kenan and Purnell Swett, said that his wife Dana has provided “tremendous support.” They have three children.

“I realized growing up what kind of sacrifices a high school coach’s family has to make, but we were always behind my dad all the way,” he said. “Fortunately, it is the same for me.”

Byrd said that the Viking football program needs to get back on the level with its fellow Columbus County competition ... South Columbus, Whiteville and East Columbus.

“You first have to start measuring your program against your neighboring schools and strive to be competitive with them,” he said. “South Columbus has a very solid program now and Whiteville still has its tradition. East Columbus has made some positive strides, and that’s what we need to be doing.”