BARTOW, Fla. — The high school basketball season is more than six months away, but that hasn’t slowed down Bartow High School’s preparations.

What You Need To Know

  •  Terrence McGriff has been the head coach boys basketball at Bartow High School since 2002

  •  Since he took over the boys basketball program, the Yellow Jackets have won three state titles

  •  McGriff was recently elected into the Polk County Sports Hall of Fame

Players spend a good amount of time in the gym working on their game — it’s the Bartow way. And it’s been that way since Terrence McGriff took over the program 21 years ago.

“This is the kind of work that nobody sees,” McGriff said. “We don’t put this on social media, like we’re in here working. You should let the work that you do speak for you.”

He says the players put in the work now to pay off later — and with state championships in 2010, 2020 and 2012, it’s paid off big three times in McGriff’s tenure. 

“I decided that this Hall of Fame is the same thing it’s always been about, the community, and the kids and the parents and the volunteers and the coaches,” he said.

McGriff shys away from the spotlight, and as the grandson of a preacher, that’s his humble nature. He says his faith is strong, and so is his love of basketball.

While still a student at Florida Southern, he applied for the job at Bartow and got it. Eleven district championships, six regional titles and three state titles — including Polk County’s only back-to-back championships in the modern era — just barely scrape the surface in demonstrating McGriff's success.

“The Hall of Fame is special to me because of this: We’ve built a team on the floor and we’ve tried to do the same thing in the community,” he said.

McGriff says that community is everything, and He knows he’s coaching in a special place. He likens it to the 80’s sitcom "Cheers," where everybody knows your name. Well, McGriff’s name is well known in Bartow, and now he gets to add the "hall of famer" superlative to it.

“This is what I was called to do,” he said. “There are more kids coming in that you can impact, right. And I think that’s why I’ve stayed. I won’t be here forever — things don’t last forever — but as long as I’m supposed to be here, as long as God says this is the business you are supposed to be doing helping my young people, I’m going to do it.