Brian Satterfield

Brian Satterfield’s record-setting career provided Fannin County football fans with lots to be proud of, and that pride has been channeled into his selection as an inaugural member of the Fannin County Sports Hall of Fame class of 2013. The Epworth native and current Blue Ridge resident graduated from Fannin County High School in 1989, where his prowess as a running back helped the Rebels achieve their first two winning seasons since the school opened in 1976. Satterfield set the single season school rushing record in the 1987 season with 2,028 yards on 292 carries and scored 14 rushing touchdowns. He went from Blue Ridge on to a prolific career at the University of North Alabama, where he became the school’s third all-time leading rusher with 2,817 yards. He scored 32 rushing touchdowns and caught 25 passes for 289 yards in his career. He rushed for nearly 400 yards in each of his first two seasons while scoring four TDs as a freshman and six as a sophomore. He led the Lions with eight touchdowns while rushing for 935 yards and earning first-team All-GSC honors in his junior season that featured four 100-yard games, including a high-water mark of 190 yards against Mississippi College. As a senior, Satterfield was named North Alabama’s Male Athlete of the Year in 1993 after helping lead the Lions to a perfect 14-0 record, a Gulf South Conference Championship and the school’s first NCAA Division II National Championship. Satterfield scored on UNA’s first play from scrimmage in 1993 on a 48-yard run against Fort Valley State, and finished the game with a school record 97-yard touchdown run to give him 243 yards rushing on just 10 carries. That mark ranks as the second most rushing yards in a game in school history. Despite missing four games with a knee injury, he finished his senior season with 1,087 yards rushing on just 147 carries. He averaged 7.4 yards per carry, scored 14 touchdowns and had four 100-yard rushing games in 1993. In the 1993 playoffs he was unstoppable, rushing for 116 yards against Hampton on 20 carries in the second round, 216 yards on 29 carries against Texas A&M Kingsville in the national semifinal and 180 yards on 23 carries against Indiana, PA., in the Championship Game. Satterfield was named a member of UNA’s 50th Anniversary Football Team and also named to the GSC Team of the Decade for the 1990s. He was recently inducted into UNA’s Athletics Hall of Fame. Satterfield was a free-agent signee by the Green Bay Packers and was on the 1996 Super Bowl champion’s roster, but a knee injury kept him off the field and effectively ended his career before his potential could be tapped. Although his high school jersey number 7 was retired, it has been temporarily re-issued for his son Peyton, who recently completed his junior season as a Rebel standout running back and defensive back. Brian and his wife Melanie also have an athletic daughter in former All-Region basketball player and track standout Kaileigh, who is currently on the Shorter College track team.