MOULTRIE – Steve Fitzgerald has coached baseball and football in Colquitt County for a quarter-century and never earned a dime.

Under his volunteer leadership, his teams have won numerous championships and he has taken teams around the the state and the Southeast.

His teams have had the reputation of being well-coached and well-disciplined. And rival coaches marveled at what he was able to accomplish, sometimes without the benefit of an assistant.

And judging from the letters of recommendation that swelled his Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame nomination form, his impact on the youngsters who have played on his teams over the years has been immense.

Fitzgerald’s willingness to pass on fundamentals and sportsmanship to youngsters in Colquitt County since 1979 has been rewarded by his selection to the Hall of Fame. He will be honored with the 13 other inductees at the annual banquet to be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 14, at the Colquitt County High cafeteria.

Fitzgerald will have received at least one other award this year when he steps up to get his Hall of Fame plaque.

On Wednesday in Americus, he received the GRPA District III Youth Coach of the Year Award.

“I’ve just enjoyed the kids and working with them,” Fitzgerald said.

In football, Fitzgerald’s Captain D’s teams won the 12-and-under recreation championship in 1989 and 1990.

He later agreed to coach the Norman Park team and led them to the league championship.

That same year he took his team to Turkey Bowl in Tifton and won four straight games, giving up just 12 points.

“I think we won it a couple of other years,” Fitzgerald said. “But we gave the trophies to Captain D’s and I’m just not sure.”

Fitzgerald is sure about winning the 10-and-under football championship in 2000 with his son Cameron on the team.

Two years later, back with Captain D’s in the 12-and-under league, Fitzgerald’s team won another league championship and took the postseason tournament as well.

In Tifton, his team played well in the Turkey Bowl and finished second to Lee County.

Fitzgerald coached the undefeated Midget League champion Belk-Hudson team in 1983 and led the league’s all-stars to a Georgia Recreation and Parks Association state runner-up finish later that summer.

He led his 1989 Belk-Hudson team to a league championship and his all-star team that summer won the GRPA District III title before finishing as the state runner-up in Dublin.

In 1990, he coached a 12-and-under team during the regular season, but coached a 10-and-under team to a district championship and a third-place finish in the state tournament.

And last summer, his 14-and-under team, which featured son Cam, won the league championship.

The league all-star team won the sub-district and finished second in the district tournament.

And his South Georgia Expos, a travel team he has coached for two seasons, won the Panama City Summer Classic last year. The team is made up of top 14-and-under players from Moultrie and Tifton and has played in a number of tournaments the last two years.

Fitzgerald began coaching youth football in 1979 and youth baseball the following spring when oldest son Chad started playing sports. He has continued to coach teams that included middle son Clay and youngest son Cameron.

He also has coached when he did not have a son on the team. And he has helped to develop a number of outstanding young athletes who went on to compete past the high school level, including Chris McAlpin, Ben Wiggins, Antonio Edwards, Marcus Ponder and Reggie Stancil.

Wiggins, who went on to coach football at Colquitt County High, is especially appreciative of Fitzgerald’s guidance.

“I was fortunate to play for some very good coaches growing up in Moultrie and later in college,” Wiggins wrote in support of Fitzgerald’s nomination. “I would put Steve Fitzgerald right up there with any of them.

“He coached us hard and ‘got after us,’ as players like to say, but he never did it in a demeaning or belittling way. Everything Steve did was positive, win or lose.”

Fitzgerald grew up in Colquitt County and remembers Vayden Murphy coaching him at Sunset School.

He attended Moultrie High School from 1964-1966 and finished the next two years at Madison County (Fla.) High, where he was a quarterback and punter on the football team.

After returning to Moultrie, he and wife Babs began raising a family.

When oldest son Chad began playing youth sports, Fitzgerald went to watch a practice. He remembers sitting in the bleachers and thinking, “I want him to get more out of this.”

“I just couldn’t stand it,” he says.

So he began coaching, often by himself, but other times with assistant coaches, including Kurt Scheub, another outstanding and unselfish youth baseball coach also in the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame.

“He never coached me,” Fitzgerald said of Scheub. “I was never lucky enough.”

A couple years after he started, Fitzgerald took a group of youngsters, most of whom were 10-year-olds, and, as Wiggins remembers, led them to an “illustrious 1-15 record.”

Two years later, that same group, representing Belk-Hudson, finished the Midget League season with a 16-0 record.

“The thing that impressed me about Coach then and now is the fact that he coached us the same way when we were 1-15 as he did when we were 16-0,” Wiggins said.

That year, Fitzgerald took the 12-and-under all-stars to the state tournament in LaGrange, where the team came up just short of the championship.

And Fitzgerald blamed himself for the team not winning the championship.

“I was just learning to coach then,” he said. “We should have won it.”

He has learned much since and has spent much of his own time and money doing it. He has attended numerous top-level clinics and seminars over the years.

“You always learn something,” he said. “Different things apply to different kids.”

“Steve’s coaching has affected players at all little league levels,” said Moultrie Mayor Bill McIntosh, whose son Will played for Fitzgerald. “He has taught T-ball players with as much enthusiasm and expertise as he has coached all-star teams.

“He is truly a coach who knows his game and has the ability to teach and inspire his players.”

But many of his former players and their parents believe that his contributions go beyond the gridirons and diamonds.

Thomas and Nancy Coleman have been impressed with the influence Fitzgerald has been on their son Clark, who played for Fitzgerald’s recreation team and for the South Georgia Expos.

“Clark has been blessed with many positive role models in his life and Steve Fitzgerald is one of them,” the Colemans wrote in a recommendation for Fitzgerald’s Hall of Fame nomination.

Benji Alderman played Farm League and Midget League baseball for Fitzgerald.

“I wish it were possible to know just how many young boys Mr. Steve coached who went on to become superb players because of him,” Alderman said. “He taught good sportsmanship and team work and gave encouragement, never criticism.”

Amy and Craig Perryman, whose son Tyler played for Fitzgerald, wrote that the coach not only fine-tuned players’ knowledge of rules, “but he also insisted on sportsman-like attitudes among all players at all times.

“An organized and tireless manager, Steve practiced what he preached and always displayed an exemplary attitude … on and off the field.”

Fitzgerald has worked for Plant Telecommunications for 25 years and is a network manager. He and his family are members of the First United Methodist Church.

Son Chad, a former place-kicker for the Colquitt County High football team, is a certified public accountant and lives in Adel. His wife is a teacher.

Middle son Clay, a junior tackle on the 1991 Colquitt County High football team that played LaGrange for the state championship, is an electrical engineer in Douglas. His wife is an eye doctor.

Youngest son Cameron is a promising baseball catcher and is kicking and playing receiver for the Colquitt County High freshman football team.