Pine Apple's Cliff Harper was inducted into many halls of fame

Cliff Harper of Pine Apple, Alabama.

This coming Tuesday – Aug. 25 – will mark the 107^th anniversary of the birth of one of the most remarkable men that Wilcox County has ever produced - Jacob Clifford “Cliff” Harper, who was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1980.

Harper was born at Pine Apple on Aug. 25, 1913, and he would go on to star as an outstanding all-around athlete at Moore Academy at Pine Apple. From there, he went on to attend college at Birmingham-Southern, where he was a standout three-sport athlete on the college’s football, baseball and basketball teams. Harper was such an outstanding athlete at Birmingham-Southern that in 1985 – more than half a century after his playing days – Harper was one of five men inducted into Birmingham-Southern’s Sports Hall of Fame.

After college, Harper launched into a successful high school coaching career that began at Sardis High School in Etowah County. Harper served two years as the school’s head football coach, beginning in 1934, which was the first season that Sardis fielded a football team. Harper also served as the school’s head basketball coach and led his team to a district title and Class A state championship during the 1935-1936 season.

After a 10-year high school coaching career, which also included stops at Evergreen, Georgiana and Spring Garden, Harper moved on to bigger and better things. On July 1, 1948, he became the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s first ever full-time executive director. The year 1948 was the same year that the AHSAA established a state office in Montgomery, and Harper went on to turn the AHSAA into one of the top high school association’s in the nation.

Harper served as the AHSAA’s executive director for 18 years and became a nationally recognized expert in the rules for football and basketball. Harper went on to publish illustrated rule books for football and basketball, and those books are still used by many athletic associations across the country today. With the establishment of the AHSAA’s Hall of Fame in 1991, Harper was one of 21 contributors to Alabama high school athletics to be inducted into that prestigious hall of fame.

In 1966, Harper left the AHSAA and went to work for the Southeastern Conference, which is headquartered in Birmingham. Largely due to his encyclopedic knowledge of athletic rules, Harper served as the director of the SEC Officials Association for many years. Harper is still memorialized by the SEC today through the Cliff Harper Trophy, which is awarded annually to the top female scorer at the SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships.

Harper was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Hall of Fame in 1987. The Alabama Sports Hall of Fame is located in Birmingham and includes famous athletes like Jesse Owens, Willie Mays and Wilcox County native Hank Aaron. To date, Harper is one of only 12 Alabamians to have ever been inducted into the NFHS Hall of Fame.

There is no doubt that Harper was a great man and that he was well respected within the athletic profession. Unfortunately, many of the honors he received came after his death. Harper passed away at the age of 66 on May 26, 1980, and he was buried in the Friendship Baptist Church Cemetery at Pine Apple, the same small town where his storied career in athletics began many, many years before.