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Suppose you have been anywhere near the Troup High baseball dugout or the football sidelines over the last few years. In that case, you have probably heard somebody yelling “Coach G” or “hey G.” That G stands for Coach Tanner Glisson, and during the Troup baseball team’s unprecedented run to the state championship this year, there were three “G’s” in the dugout. Joining Tanner over the last several years in the dugout are rising junior Chandler Glisson and rising seventh-grader Chambers Glisson, and the three got to share a special moment earlier in May when they won the GHSA AAA State Championship alongside each other.

“I went to console the opposing team’s coach first, and then I went and found my wife in the stands and found Chandler and gave him a big hug,” Tanner said. “I think Chambers made it into the dogpile.”

This elicited a mischievous grin from Chambers, who was photographed jumping into the dogpile with the players. 

The state championship is truly the culmination of a lifelong bond between the Glissons, that is pillared by their mutual love for sports, which bloomed naturally in the two boys as they spent much of their youth at a ball field watching dad coach.

“I’ve been around sports my whole life,” Chandler said. “I don’t even remember starting to play baseball, I just always have.”

Chandler’s first love was football, and he could slide into one of the starting tight end roles for the Troup High team in the fall.

Eventually, watching turned into being coached by their old man. 

“He definitely hasn’t gotten any softer as we got older,” Chandler said, sharing a laugh with his dad.

“He’s hard on us,” Chambers added. “He’s definitely harder on us than any of the other players.”

Tanner interjected that “Chambers doesn’t even know what hard is yet” as the trio shared another hearty laugh.  

The journey started in Manchester together when Tanner coached Chandler in parks and rec ball. Tanner was working his dream job as the head coach of the Manchester High football team, his Alma mater. Tanner felt a calling to Troup County, and now, the rest is history. 

“When I was the head coach at Manchester, that really was my dream job, and I played for a state championship there as a player, and that’s all I ever wanted to do,” Tanner said in a press conference after winning the state championship. “God kept pushing me to Troup, and I’m blessed to be in this situation… God opened this door for me, and when God’s timing is right, you have to go with it.”

The Glisson name will forever be etched into the stones at Troup High. Tanner and Chambers helped lead the Tigers to their first non-wrestling state championship in program history, and the former is already the winningest football coach in Troup history with 76 wins in total, 29 more than the next highest win total for a coach in the football program’s history. 

That does not even account for Tanner’s oldest child, Lanier, helping the volleyball team make its first-ever Elite 8 appearance in 2023.

Chandler was not a starter on the 2025 baseball team, but played a big role, including coming in at catcher during game two of the AAA State Championship series.

“It was exciting to go out there and play in that big stadium,” Chandler said. “I’m glad [Tanner] trusted me to go in there.”

“Well, Chandler, like so many other of our players, may not be a starter, but plays a huge role for us,” Tanner added. “Chandler is our, I don’t mean this derogatory, but he’s our bullpen catcher, and so he has to go down there and get the guys warmed up, and he comes back and tells me, hey, this, what pitch is working, and this one isn’t.”

While Chambers is yet to join the ranks of the team, he is every bit a part of the program. Need a hype man? That’s Chambers. Need a pick-me-up after a strikeout? That’s Chambers. The youngest Glisson is like the younger brother of the team.

“It’s fun to be around the older kids and learn from the way that they play,” Chambers said. 

While not his official title, Chambers was essentially an honorary team manager. 

While the three guys get to have all the fun, one woman works tirelessly to make it all happen. Whitney Glisson, the matriarch of the Glisson household, has been to just about every football field and baseball diamond in the state of Georgia at this point.

“We don’t have to drag her anywhere; she wanted to be there,” Tanner said, raising his voice in excitement as he talked about his wife. “It’s not just about Chandler and Chambers, she loves all these kids because she’s seen them come through Long Cane (where she is a principal). She drove up for games one and two on Tuesday for the state championship, drove back that night, and then went to work at Long Cane for a short period the next morning, and then drove all day back up to Rome for game three. Then she drives all the way back to LaGrange to be at Lanier’s graduation party. She is the worker. I think I work hard, but it is no comparison to what she puts in.”

It takes a lot to be a coach’s wife, and especially one who leads two programs like Tanner. Taking on the role as head baseball coach in 2020, while still coaching football, was a big responsibility for Tanner. At first, it was on a year-by-year basis with the thought that it would be temporary. 

Five seasons later, Tanner is still going strong.

“I think it really boiled down to the kids wanting us to stick around,” Tanner said. “After year one, we had a meeting with the kids, and they wanted me to stay a part of it. I think it was pretty much unanimous that they wanted me to stay around, which made it an easy decision for me.”

One piece of the Glisson puzzle will no longer be ever-present at Troup baseball and football games, with Lanier graduating last week. While her presence will be missed, the Glissons are not trading in the blue and gold anytime soon, and they would have it no other way.

“If they were not in the dugout, I would not be doing what I do. For a simple fact of when I took over the baseball program, that was one of the big questions: would it be a family affair, or would it just be me out there?” Glisson said. “If it didn’t have everyone in the house’s blessing, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“You get one of us, you get all of us,” he added with a big grin.