Remembering the Legend: Jay Nidiffer

Published 2:29 pm Wednesday, November 2, 2022

BY C.Y. Peters

Jay Nidiffer went to Unaka High School where he became a three-sport athlete.  He played basketball, baseball and football for the Rangers. His basketball career saw him average over twelve points a game his senior year and with some recognition, he would try his hand at the college level.  In 1951 Jay began college at ETSU and was there for a year and a half before being drafted into the United States Army.  He spent two years in the Korean conflict.

Jay was awarded a scholarship to Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee where he played baseball for the “Railsplitters” and graduated with a  Bachelor of Science degree.  While at LMU he met his future wife, Katie Hodge, who was a cheerleader. She graduated from LMU in 1956 and the couple married soon afterward.

Jay began his first coaching and teaching job in Mountain City in 1958 where he coached basketball and baseball while being named assistant coach on the football team.  He spent two years with the Longhorns before taking a job in Hot Springs, Virginia.  One of his famous basketball stars went on to be a golf legend, J.C. Sneed, but also won the state tournament in basketball his senior season.

In 1963 Jay would coach the first black athlete to play for a state-supported high school in the south at Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee.  Ralph Boulware was the player’s name and his son Peter would become a great football player at Florida State and play in four Pro Bowls as a Baltimore Raven.

Jay would now try his hand at college sports where he took a position at Mercer University and when Coach Dwayne Morrison left for Georgia Tech, he took Jay with him.  There they coached the Yellowjackets basketball team for eight years having much success.

Nidiffer would then work as an assistant at South Carolina before joining Cloudland native Sonny Smith at Auburn where he coached and led Auburn to the Elite Eight.  Some of his players were Chuck Person, who was selected fourth overall in the 1986 NBA draft by the Indiana Pacers, where he played six seasons.  He would go on to play fourteen years in the NBA and was the 1987 Rookie of the Year.

In 1987 Nidiffer returned to LMU to serve as Athletic Director until 1991 when he decided to get back into basketball, returning to ETSU until his retirement in 1999.  Even after he retired, he still wanted to be a part of basketball and went to Walters State and was an assistant to Coach Bill Caryle.  Jay returned once again as Athletic Director to LMU in 2003 and put in five more years before he re-retired.  Nidiffer is a member of the LMU Sports Hall of Fame and was selected for the 2013 Carter County Sports Hall of Fame.

Jay was married to Katie Hodge Nidiffer for 62 years before he passed away on Monday, February 25, 2019.

Jay and his wife were active members of the First Baptist Church and he served four years as Chairman of the Carter County Republican Party.