LEXINGTON, S.C. — When the 2024 high school soccer season ends for River Bluff, it will be the last time Phil Savitz is walking the sidelines as a head coach.
Savitz, who has been a high school head soccer coach for the past 44 seasons, will retire at the end of what will be his 45th season as a head coach.
He spent 33 seasons at Irmo where he won 14 state championships and in fact, his last match at Irmo was the 2013 state championship where his Yellow Jackets defeated Lexington in penalty kicks. Savitz went on to win the 2016 state championship at River Bluff.
Savitz has won 806 matches which is tops among soccer coaches in the state.
A former graduate assistant under Mark Berson at South Carolina, Savitz spent two seasons working under Berson who was building the USC program from scratch. Savitz would take over the Irmo program for the 1980-1981 academic year and that was the start of a Hall of Fame career.