Sandersville renames football field the Gregg Perdue Memorial Field | Community Spirit

“He loved teaching and coaching” was a statement echoed by both family and friends of Gregg Perdue, who spent his entire adult life as an educator in the classroom and on the field.

After graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1970, Perdue began his teaching career in Georgia, but after only a year, he and his wife, Sherry, moved back to Jones County and he started a 28-year teaching and coaching career at Sandersville Elementary. After the school was closed when the Jones County School system consolidated the elementary schools, Perdue went to East Jones Elementary and continued to teach English and Literature until retiring from the Jones County School District in 2003 to teach at Sylva Bay Academy in Jasper County. That same year he received the AEE Teacher of the Year Award. Perdue was also known as a fair and respected umpire for the Dixie Youth Baseball in Jones County.

At Sylva Bay Academy, Perdue was an English and Literature teacher, coached junior high basketball and was the assistant coach for the high school football and basketball teams until his sudden death of a massive heart attack December 20, 2008.