We lost one of the all-time great Salemites last Saturday when Billy Miles passed on at the age of 78. He made a great impact on many as a teacher, football coach and just a good guy.
Billy grew up in Salem. His dad, also Billy, ran Billy’s Barbeque that was a hangout for Roanoke College kids in the ‘60s, then opened “Billy’s Barn,” a popular restaurant and bar in Salem.
Young Billy played on the football team at Andrew Lewis High School under coach Eddie Joyce, who would be a special mentor to him. A member of the Lewis Class of 1966, Billy was a standout player who went on to play at Fort Scott Junior College in Kansas, one of the top junior college programs in the nation. Fort Scott won the NJCAA national championship in 1970 and was national runner-up three other times.
Billy grew up in the time of the Viet Nam war and served in the U.S. Army, where he was seriously injured. His wounds would stay with him for the rest of his life, but wouldn’t deter him from having a full life and being a great influence to countless young people.
After returning to Salem Billy received his bachelor’s degree in history from Radford College and taught history at Salem High School. He was a popular teacher and made learning interesting and fun for the students in his class.
While Billy was known as a good teacher, his passion was football. He was a volunteer coach at Andrew Lewis Middle School in the late ‘70s then joined Wallace Thompson’s staff at Salem High in 1981. He assisted Thompson for two years and Carl Richards for one when Salem High was in the Roanoke County School system, then coached with Willis White for 17 years after Salem broke off from the county and hired White away from Patrick Henry High.
Miles proved to be a valuable member of the staff as the Spartans rose to a perennial state contender in the high school football ranks. As offensive line coach and offensive coordinator he gained a reputation as one of the very best line coaches on any level. His “mules” were legendary and the tradition still carries on with the Salem team to this day.
I had the pleasure of covering those teams through the entirety of Billy’s tenure. I enjoyed talking football with him and was impressed with his passion and knowledge of the game. Each year about this time I’d call him to go over his offensive line for our preseason football section. One year I unwittingly wrote a little more than I should, to which Billy chastised me for “giving away his line calls in the paper.” I made sure that didn’t happen again.
I’ll always remember a couple things he told me about his mules, and I’ve repeated these lines many times. Billy would tell the linemen the only people who were watching them during the game were their parents and him.
And here’s my favorite. Billy would say, “when the running back runs for a big gain everyone up in the stands would say what a good player the running back was. But when the running back would get tackled in the backfield everyone would yell, ‘block line block’.”
He was a tough guy. Billy had a reputation as someone you didn’t want to mess with as a young man. When he was an assistant at Lewis I was hanging out in the football office when a player named Brian Ellis came in to get his ankles taped. I didn’t know who the player was at the time, so when Billy barked “sit down Brian” my butt found a chair in a hurry.
Current Salem High coach Don Holter had a special relationship with Billy. Don moved from West Virginia, by himself, to play football for the Spartans and the team and coaches quickly became his family. Billy took him under his wing and later hired him as a coach when Miles took a job as head coach at Franklin County.
“I had an opportunity to play for him and coach with him,” said Holter. “He was a teacher and a mentor and a great coach who left no stone unturned. He was passionate and dedicated, and I had no doubt that I was learning from one of the best.”
Billy coached winning teams with White for 16 years but winning that first state championship wasn’t easy. In 1984 the Spartans went 9-1 but a loss to Pulaski County on the second-to-last game of the season kept them out of the playoffs when it was a lot harder to make the post-season. In 1986 the Spartans beat Pulaski in a thriller in Dublin, 14-13, and finished 12-2, making it to the state championship game before losing to a stacked Hampton Crabbers team, 14-0 in Newport News.
In 1989 Salem won their first 12 games but standout quarterback Stephen Magenbauer was injured in the first game of the playoffs and Salem ended up losing to Blacksburg. In 1990 a banged up Spartan team made it to the third round of the playoffs before losing in Lee County, and in 1991 a powerhouse Spartan team was undefeated and hosting the state championship game only to be upset by Spotsylvania in the final, 31-27.
The next year was the Richlands long cleats game, and in 1995 Salem lost to Amherst County in overtime at Salem Stadium and after the game I’ll never forget Billy mumbling loudly to himself, “I can’t take it, I just can’t take it anymore.” A couple weeks later, after he calmed down, I talked with him and he made the point that, “if you’re a good team you’re going to either win the state championship or end the season with a loss.”
Salem had ended 10 straight very successful seasons with a loss heading into the 1996 campaign. Once again the Spartans made the state championship game, only this time they didn’t end with a loss. They beat Sherando, 20-12, to win the school’s first state football championship.
To this day, that game is my favorite of all-time. It was so much fun to see friends of mine with smiling faces, overwhelmed with joy after finally getting over the hump. Not the least of those friends was Billy Miles, and I made sure to get a shot of his family after the game. Sons Chad and Shaine had played for the Spartans and youngest son Travis was a “mule” on that 1996 very special team.
Salem won state championships again in 1998 and 1999 with Billy on the staff. By that time it was no secret that he was a heck of a good football coach. Cave Spring had approached him about taking their job, but Billy was as Salem as they come and he turned them down to stay with the Spartans.
Then, in the spring of 2000, I got a call from Billy at my house. He had decided to take the Franklin County job and he wanted to make sure I heard it from him. It was time to be the head man in charge, and Billy saw Franklin County as a sleeping giant in the greater Roanoke Valley area.
At that time Franklin County was traditionally a bad football team. Even in the early ‘80s, before Willis White arrived, Salem teams with poor records usually beat Franklin County. The Eagles had not had a winning season since 1978 when Billy took the job, eight times in that span winning two or fewer games in the season.
In Billy’s first year the Eagles were 4-6, followed by a 6-4 season in 2001. Then, in 2002, the Eagles went 9-2 and made the Class 6 playoffs [verify classification label] for the first time in school history. his six-year record with the Eagles was 39-24 and in 2021 he was inducted into the Franklin County High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
Through those six years Billy never sold his home in Salem, driving to Rocky Mount every day of the football season. You see, he was coaching in Franklin County but he was still a Salem guy. After he retired you could see him at Salem games up on the hill to the home side of the big “S,” enjoying the game with his Salem friends of many years. Even when his leg didn’t allow him to move around freely wife Linda would drive their truck to the home games and Billy would sit in the truck on the hill on the [verify: home side or visitors’ side] to watch Salem play.
“In 2023 we played Tuscarora in the state semifinal in Leesburg,” remembers Holter. “Billy’s leg was all swollen up and he could hardly walk, but he insisted he wasn’t going to miss that game.
“He was just a ‘dude’, and people who knew him will know what I’m talking about,” Holter continued. “He paid a price in Viet Nam. I’ve been with him when he’d take a piece of shrapnel out of his leg that had come up to the surface, and he’d just pick it out and toss it in the trash can. You could hear the ‘ding’.
“He had a fused leg and you knew it was hurtin’ him, but he never whined or complained about anything. I told him once that modern science could do some pretty amazing stuff and did he ever think about getting a replacement. He told me he could coach, he could golf, he could ski and he could fish. The only thing he couldn’t do was run and he never liked running much anyway. I never mentioned it again after that.”
Billy was married to wife Linda for 57 years. He leaves three sons, Chad, Shaine and Travis, along with Shaine’s wife Vanessa and Travis’ wife Jenny. He had three grandchildren, Landon, Brock and Maggie. Brock, Shaine’s son, played quarterback for Salem and North Cross and is now on the Bridgewater College team.
Billy was blessed to see Brock play a game he loved in his waning years, and when Shaine played for Virginia Tech I once mentioned to Billy it must be fun to see Shaine playing for the Hokies. He replied, “I love all my sons equally.” Then, with a wry smile he added, “But I have to admit it is pretty special.”
Gone too soon at 78, Billy Miles will be long remembered. Not just for his accomplishments, but for the deeds done by his players and students from lessons learned in the classroom, in the field house and on the football field.
“He always taught us to be the best person in all aspects of life,” said Holter. “What a mentor! His legacy will continue to travel with me, and a lot of others, too. He lives on through all of us.”
And if that’s not a life well-lived I don’t know what is.
