As one of the 10 winningest high school coaches in Tennessee high school basketball history, Albert Ellison’s place in the record books has long been cemented. Before coaching at Hardin County from 1975-82, Ellison helped revolutionize the high school game as a player by leading his Linden team to back-to-back state titles in 1955 and 1956. After playing for 4 years at Western Kentucky, he began his coaching career in 1960. Including his years coaching at Hardin County and elsewhere, he won over 700 games in his coaching career. Ellison was inducted into the TSSAA Hall of Fame in 2007.
CLASS OF 2022
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Albert Ellison
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Anthony Gilchrist
Anthony Gilchrist has spent a lifetime as a central figure in high school sports in Hardin County. After a successful playing career as a multi-sport athlete at Central High, he played 2 years of collegiate baseball and basketball at Jackson State. He excelled on the diamond as an all-conference player his sophomore year, leading to a baseball scholarship from UT Martin. At the conclusion of his playing career he returned to Savannah where he began coaching basketball at the elementary level before eventually returning to Hardin County High School. There he served as head boys’ basketball coach for 22 years, being named District Coach of the Year and Best of the West Coach of the Year for the 1992-93 season. He also coached cross country, baseball and served as athletic director.
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Jim Hardin
Born in the Morris Chapel community, Jim Hardin is one of the most accomplished professional athletes to ever hail from Hardin County. After pitching at Memphis State he signed a contract with the expansion New York Mets, and was eventually drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in the 1965 minor league draft. In 1967, the Orioles called him up to the major leagues where he was a member of one of the best pitching staffs of the 1960s and 1970s. Hardin earned a World Series ring in 1970
and was part of the dominant 1969 American League champions who lost the World
Series to the "Miracle Mets". Tragically, Hardin died in 1991 when the plane he was piloting crashed in an attempted emergency landing. It was widely reported that during the plane's descent, Hardin steered the plane away from a baseball diamond filled with young children.
