Nearly 20 years after Bob Jamieson’s death, North Carolina interscholastic athletic administrators believe they still are trying to catch up with his vision for high school athletics in the state.

Jamieson, who died in 1993 at age 83, coached football, basketball, golf, swimming and baseball during his 36-year coaching career at Grimsley. He built a 240-125-15 record with seven state titles in football and a 618-271 mark with three state titles in basketball, but he is best remembered for what he did for the children of his community, the state and the entire country.

“When you talk about Bob Jamieson you don’t necessarily think about all those coaching victories,” said Charlie Adams, the former executive director of the N.C. High School Athletic Association. “What you remember is his innovations, his always wanting to make things better for the kids, not just the football kids or the basketball kids or the kids in Greensboro. He wanted to make it better for every kid he could.”

“He was that much of a visionary,” said Mac Morris, a director of the N.C. Coaches Association, an organization that Jamieson founded and which will have more than 7,000 high school coaches in attendance at its annual clinic this week in Greensboro.

Sixty years before the NCHSAA embraced continuing education for high school coaches, Jamieson was planning and organizing the N.C. Coaches Association, which is now one of the largest coaches groups in the country. More than 7,000 coaches are expected to attend this week.

Thirty years before the NCHSAA began offering girls state championships, Grimsley started fielding girls teams. Jamieson might have to pack them up to compete in invitationals in other states, but he felt offering athletics to girls was important.

When Greensboro High began building a football stadium, which was later named for Jamieson, he envisioned a much larger school, a school that would need a large stadium.

Jamieson checked attendance and the grades of his athletes regularly because he believed representing the community required a certain level of commitment. He established his own grade-point average requirements long before the state did.

Jamieson helped start the recreation swimming program in Greensboro and coached the Grimsley girls swim team for decades before swimming was a recognized high school sport in the state.

“Coach Jamieson was thinking well beyond his lifetime,” said Jerry McGee, the executive director of the N.C. Athletic Directors Association, another group that Jamieson helped start.

Jamieson was a do-everything coach, and he knew there were other coaches in the state who were not experts in some of the things they were being asked to coach. The coaching clinic brought in national experts in all sports, not just football, basketball and baseball, to teach fundamentals and coaching skills.

The athletic directors association served the same purpose. Jamieson was the Grimsley athletic director, and he wanted a way to learn from other athletic directors. He wanted to inject more professionalism.

Jamieson was the first person from North Carolina to be inducted into the National High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame, a fitting tribute to a coach who always thought that the students came first.