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Fleming Island to rename field after longtime coach, athletic director

Coach Randy Warren Field will be home to Golden Eagles teams

By Wesley LeBlanc Staff Writer
Posted 11/20/19

FLEMING ISLAND – A school’s athletic field will soon be renamed in honor of a man known as “Mr. Fleming Island High School,” who passed away just a few months ago.

Randy Warren was the …

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Fleming Island to rename field after longtime coach, athletic director

Coach Randy Warren Field will be home to Golden Eagles teams


Posted

FLEMING ISLAND – A school’s athletic field will soon be renamed in honor of a man known as “Mr. Fleming Island High School,” who passed away just a few months ago.

Randy Warren was the athletic director of Fleming Island High for 14 years before he stepped down from the position in 2017 to spend some extra time with his wife. While faculty and students alike missed his daily presence, Warren’s presence can be seen at every athletic home game. He passed away on Sept. 11. His legacy will be upheld by the field’s new name: Coach Randy Warren Field.

“He would never have let us do this,” Fleming Island Principal Thomas Pittman said. “He was too great and too humble of a guy. In fact, he’s probably working on finding a way to come down and beat us up. It’s going to be awesome though and it’ll mean a lot.”

Pittman’s friendship with Warren goes far beyond their time at the school. The two met more than 20 years ago when they worked at Orange Park High. Pittman said Warren was a great friend, so when their work lives were reunited after Pittman was hired as principal at Fleming Island, it felt like old times.

While Warren held the title of athletic director, Pittman said he was so much more. Because he worked as a math teacher before his athletic position, Warren could be seen coaching players in both sports and in mathematics like algebra.

“He would help students however he could,” Pittman said. “For all 24 years that I knew him, he was like that. He’d take on whatever responsibility he needed to take on to help someone else.”

After Warren’s death, support staff and head girls’ soccer coach Frank Pontore, who was a friend of Warren’s as well, met with Warren’s wife to ask for her blessing in both an October memorial service and in renaming the school’s athletic field after her late husband.

Pontore said the school is working through the design process for the field sign and hopes to have an official unveiling next year. Pontore and Pittman expect a massive community turnout of friends, students, alumni and faculty.

“He made an impact in so many people’s lives,” Pittman said.

Pittman remembers how loyal Warren was to the school.

“He didn’t have a clock,” Pontore said. “He wasn’t worried about punching a clock. He worked to get the job done and because he was proud of it. That field was his baby and it’s only right that we name it in his honor.”

Pontore is especially excited for the school’s first soccer match on the newly renamed field next year. He said Warren always said Fleming Island was best known for its soccer.

Be it soccer, football, lacrosse or one of the school’s many other sports that take place on the field, both Pontore and Pittman are excited for generations of students to play on the field in honor of Warren.

“He was a great friend and a great person,” Pittman said. “You don’t get many friends like that in life, but he was one of them and I’ll never forget him.”