Four decades of friendship, on and off the field

BRIDGEWATER, Va. (AP) — The year is roughly 1975. Phil Judd and Eric Baylor are in third grade ... maybe fourth. It’s hard for them to remember sometimes.

Baylor is a student at the old Bridgewater Elementary School, which he has attended since kindergarten. Judd is a new student. His father has just taken a job at Bridgewater College and moved the family from Augusta County.

Like most young boys with similar interests, mainly sports, they hit it off right away. In fact, the only time they weren’t friends was when they were pitted against each other on the kickball field.

“We went to all of each other’s birthday parties,” Baylor said of the origins of a friendship that has spanned more than four decades. “We were always friends.”

Baylor and Judd’s educational careers and their professional ones have mirrored each other closely over the last 45 years. And while they may have had to face each other on opposite sides of the playing field over those years, they have always been close friends.

Baylor recently took a job in Rockingham County Public Schools Central Office as workplace learning experience coordinator after spending more than 10 years as the principal of East Rockingham High School. Judd is the principal at Turner Ashby High School, where the two of them graduated from in 1986.

While at TA, both Baylor and Judd played football, this time on the same side of the field.

“In 1986, we were recruited as football players and scholars,” Baylor said.

Judd responded to that with a laugh: “I don’t know if we would have gone to college if it weren’t for football.”

After four years of playing on the same side, Baylor and Judd were now rivals — at least on the football field. Baylor went to James Madison University and Judd to Towson University in Baltimore. With both...