Sometime back around 1987-'89, I showed up to a Decatur High School football practice to catch the last bit of practice and talk with Head Coach Steve Rivers for a story at the paper I was a sportswriter for, the Decatur Daily.

I ran into quite the interesting football tale about Rivers that I was made privy to by my boss before going over. Rivers was the head coach at Decatur, and his crosstown rival was Austin High School. The coach there was Rivers' coach at Sylacauga, Tom Calvin, a former Alabama player from the 1950s.

Rivers was a star quarterback for Calvin and went to Mississippi State to play football after high school. Only to look up years later to see his old coach on the opposite sideline. Both Rivers, inducted in 2015, and Calvin, inducted in 1991, went on to hall of fame coaching careers in Alabama high school football.

Helping out at that practice in the late 1980s was a little tow-headed kid chasing down footballs, handing out water, picking up blocking pads. Helping wherever he could.

That kid, Philip Rivers, grew up to write a pretty darn good football story himself and is considered a shoo-in NFL Hall of Fame quarterback. If he ever stops playing long enough to be a nonplayer for the required five years to be considered.

Philip Rivers has been head football coach at St. Michael Catholic in Fairhope for the five past seasons. After his team lost out in the 2025 playoff semifinals for the second year, he suited up with the Indianapolis Colts for three games. In the off-season, he also interviewed for the top job with the Buffalo Bills before deciding to withdraw and stay put at St. Michael.

My friend Steve's grandson, Gunner Rivers, has been busy these past two football seasons quarterbacking his team to a 25-3 record as a fitting beginning to his own football story following in the footsteps of Steve and his dad, Philip. 

In 2025, the youngest Rivers completed 237 of 343 passes for 3,176 yards and 46 touchdowns against only five interceptions. During the season, St. Michael was at one time ranked No. 1 and beat eventual Class 4A state champion Jackson in the regular season before losing the rematch to Jackson in the state semifinals.

After three years at St. Michael, Gunner Rivers has passed for 10,200 yards for sixth on the AHSAA's career list. He's just one of 10 quarterbacks in Alabama with more than 100 touchdown passes at 111 and has a season left add more.

Yes, that's a good start to another great story in three generations of the Rivers football family. There are two more sons among Philip's 10 children, Peter who is 14, and the youngest of the 10, Andrew, 2, also in that third generation.

Could there be more? Philip and wife Tiffany welcomed their first grandchild in 2024, a grandson.