The year was 1968 and the city of Hoover had been incorporated as a city the year before. The only high school in town, Berry High, had been in existence for a few years. The football program began in 1962 with Larry Wilson as head coach and the Buccaneers had experienced respectable success during his tenure through 1965. Wayne Sims took over in 1966 and 1967 and the team struggled with losing records.

Before the 1964 season, Wilson hired a young assistant coach named Bob Finley to serve as basketball coach and assist in football with the junior varsity squad. Finley had previously served at Walker County in Jasper for 2 years before coaching a year at his high school alma mater in Fayette, Alabama. After serving two years under Wilson, Finley served the next two under Sims.

Serving with Bob Finley as assistants under Sims were Joe Perkins (a boyhood friend and high school teammate); Gerald Gann (a graduate of Winfield, Alabama where Finley was born); Wayne Sims and Wayne Williams. Coach Sims left in 1968 to pursue a business career and Berry principal Tom Gann indicated that he wanted to have someone from the existing staff serve as head football coach.

At the time, Coach Finley indicated that he wanted to continue as head basketball coach and assist in football. He wanted either Perkins or Gann to get the job. However, both Perkins and Gann banded together to recommend Finley. Perkins said, "Give Coach Gann and myself credit. We knew who should be recommended. We promised Coach Finley that if he would ask for the recommendation we would assist him in anyway asked. We would divide the duties equally or whatever if he would accept the head position should it be offered. He did and we did."

Perkins continued, "Coach Finley adopted an old adage Fatique makes cowards of us all. From the onset, his approach to developing the football program was to concentrate on the physical aspects of preparation. More than once, he stated that other teams may have more talent, more numbers, they may be bigger and faster and those were things we had no control over. The one thing we could control was the physical condition of the athletes. So it became his goal and our goal to never allow an athlete to experience defeat because of a lack of physical preparation. It became a source of pride with the athletes to be able to go hard in the fourth quarter."

Former Bucs player Robert Hay, who as a 9th grader played for Finley on the junior varsity team, offered this perspective: "Coach Finley was taking over a losing program and decided the way to turn this program around was to work hard on the basics of football and to be in better shape than anyone else. That spring he nearly killed us, he worked us so hard. But we did not know what hard work was until we returned for the sum training. We thought the man had lost his mind. We truly believed he was trying to kill us."

Hay continued, "Somehow we lived to see the season began. Our first game, we were picked to lose big time. The opposing team (Mountain Brook) was picked to be one of the powerhouses in the state. We beat them 7-6 with four goal line stands in the 4thquarter. Those of you who know and understand football know that four goal line stands that late in the game is awesome. All of a sudden, all that we had been through began to make sense. Maybe this coach was not such a mad man after all. Maybe this coach had transformed us from losers to winners. We did become winners. We had a very successful season. We finished the year ranked #3 in the state of Alabama. Not only did we have a winning season, but that started a winning tradition at W.A. Berry High School for Coach Finley." During the course of the 1968 season, the Bucs went on to win every game except Shades Valley and event then managed to gain revenge over the Mounties in the Dental Clinic Game after the regular season. The state playoffs were not as expanded as they later became. The Bucs played their first playoff game against eventual state champion Sidney Lanier of Montgomery and lost big but they finished the year with a 9-2 record. The next season of 1969 saw the Bucs complete the season 10-0. They won their first playoff game to proceed to the state championship game against another Montgomery team, Robert E. Lee. They lost 14-7 at Legion Field settling for runner-up. However, a strong winning tradition had been established under the guidance of Bob Finley. The Bucs finally won their first title eight years later iu 1977 and although the Buccaneer program has experienced its ups and downs throughout time most seasons have been winning.

Now after 40 years, the Buccaneers have accumulated 7 state championships and 4 runner-up positions. The Winning Tradition will continue.

GO BUCS!!