Johnny Farmer

When he took over the girls basketball team in Blue Ridge, Johnny Farmer said he wanted to "put Fannin County on the map." Five hundred seventy-seven wins and two state championships later, call it settled. Farmer was born in McCaysville in 1956 and grew up chasing two older brothers — Greg, a West Fannin basketball star who went on to Truett-McConnell and West Georgia, and Tony, the 1971 state golf runner-up who spent ten years on the PGA Tour. Johnny started as a sophomore for the 1972 West Fannin team that went 19–8 and reached the Class A state tournament, where his team-leading 20 points knocked off a Coosa squad led by future NBA guard Mike Glenn. He averaged 14 a game as a junior and 23 points and 16 rebounds as a senior Prep All-American, playing under Tom Foster and T.J. Thompson — both Hall of Famers themselves. After graduating in 1974 he spent a year at Cumberland Junior College in Lebanon, Tennessee, playing for a young coach named Cliff Ellis. When Ellis moved to South Alabama, Farmer followed, started three seasons there, and finished an education degree in 1979. He and his wife Donna, married since 1976, spent the next year in Europe while he played professionally in Luxembourg. Midway through the season he inherited the player-coach job. Those were his first 15 wins. Then home. One season as assistant boys coach and JV girls head coach at Fannin County High, and in 1981, the varsity Lady Rebels. He went 13–10 that first year and then simply kept winning — one losing season in 25. The Lady Rebels brought home the school's first-ever state championship in 1993, and a second in 1999; the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Atlanta Tip-Off Club both named him Class AA Coach of the Year in '93. From 1995-96 through that second title, Fannin County went 103–9 — the best four-year run in the state. He closed out his time with the girls at 509–167 in 2007, then moved over to coach his sons Jonathan and Jordan on the boys team. That first squad started 17–0 and finished with 22 wins: a school record, and the first state tournament appearance by a Fannin County boys team. He retired in 2011 with the numbers to back up the promise.