James Day, the longtime championship-winning track and field head coach at Raines High School through the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, will become Jacksonville’s latest honoree in the Florida High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame.
The FHSAA announced Day’s selection on Sept. 3. The association has not yet specified a date for the induction ceremonies.
Day won FHSAA team track and field championships at Raines in 1976 and 1989 during a coaching career that stretched from 1966 to 1997. He also served through 2021 as the director of the Bob Hayes Invitational Track Meet, billed for years as the nation’s largest single-day track and field event, which grew into a premier competition attracting elite prospects and several future Olympians from around the United States and beyond.
Day also worked as the Raines athletic director for nearly two decades, and his teams won 19 individual FHSAA boys events and 12 boys relay events during that span. He died in February 2022 at age 88.
The field house at Raines, just south of Earl S. Kitchings Stadium, is named in Day’s honor.
He also worked for several years at the turn of the millennium as an advisor and later athletic director at Edward Waters College (now Edward Waters University).
His numerous other career honors include induction into the Florida Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1985, the Florida Athletic Coaches Hall of Fame in 1987, the Raines High School Boosters Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001, the Bob Hayes Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2002 and the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2015.
Also scheduled for FHSAA induction in the class of 2025 are former Coral Gables football quarterback Craig Curry, Pinellas County administrator Nickolas Grasso, Miami-Dade County administrator Paul Green, former St. Thomas Aquinas track sprinter Arman Hall, Miami-Dade County administrator Alan Keen, official Terry E. Lee Sr. and longtime football coach Dwight Thomas.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Hall of Fame: FHSAA to honor James Day, longtime Raines coach and Bob Hayes meet director
Reporting by Clayton Freeman, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
