James “Radio” Kennedy, the inspiration for a Hollywood movie and a man described as  “in his element when spreading joy,” has died. He was 73.

Former T.L. Hanna High School football coach Harold Jones confirmed Kennedy’s death on Sunday morning.

Kennedy had been a fixture on the sidelines of Hanna football games for more than 50 years. He formed a bond with his community that reached far beyond Anderson.

“He was just a fine, fine man,” Jones said. “We all loved him. We will miss him incredibly.”

For decades, he’d been an unofficial 11th-grader at Hanna, where he kept vigil since 1965. Once a quiet student, he became one of Anderson’s most famous residents.

The 2003 film “Radio,” starring Cuba Gooding Jr. in the title role, focuses on Kennedy’s relationship with Jones, portrayed by Ed Harris. Launched after a story published by Sports Illustrated, the film takes some dramatic license and compresses decades of time into a single football season, but it’s regarded as truthfully telling the story of friendship and a town’s acceptance of a man with intellectual disabilities and a warm smile.

“Radio was the heart and soul of T.L. Hanna for over 50 years, and the impact he made in our community can’t be overstated,” Kyle Newton, a spokesman for Anderson School District 5, said in a statement Sunday morning. “He will be missed, but his legacy will live on in the countless lives he touched.” 

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Everyone who knew Kennedy at school has a story about him that will make you smile, former T.L. Hanna principal Sheila Hilton wrote on a Yellow Jackets Facebook page. Some remember the time he ate a cooler full of sandwiches that had  been tucked away on a bus for the football team. Others talk about his ability to name the mascot of every team in South Carolina. 

Prior to his death, Kennedy had a lengthy hospital stay. He had transitioned to Hospice of the Upstate just hours before he died.

Jones said he cherished his time with Kennedy, and he said their being able to share their story with the world made a difference in people’s lives.

Until recently, the pair had kept up a regular schedule of volunteer work. And even facing health problems, Kennedy led the Hanna football team onto the field at least twice this season by riding in a golf cart.

Best known for his love of the football team, Kennedy would show the same love and appeared regularly for all the sports teams and at other school events, even at schools unrelated to Hanna.

As long as his health permitted, Kennedy remained a fixture at Hanna and in the community. Just days before Christmas 2016, when he heard that the Salvation Army was struggling to raise money during its holiday kettle campaign, he and Jones stood together in the bitter cold for hours outside Sam’s Club on Liberty Highway.

“I’m trying to stay warm,” Kennedy said then, “and help folks if I can.”

Their efforts that day — as hundreds stopped for photos with “Radio” and then donated to the kettle — helped sustain the Salvation Army’s work for weeks.

He got his nickname “Radio” because he always carried a transistor radio, said Carolyn Dawkins. She worked in the Belk department store annex in the early 1970s, when Kennedy would come by several times a week to talk high school sports with the store manager, Glenn New, who had kids in school.

“His story is amazing,” Dawkins said. “How someone like Radio at that time — he was challenged, and he touched a lot of people’s lives. He was still having fun.”

Kennedy didn’t talk much unless you got him going about local sports, but his smile was infectious and he was always a kind man, Dawkins said.

Kennedy’s niece and caregiver, Jackie Kennedy, said Sunday morning that the family is working to plan funeral arrangements.

“So many people loved him,” she said.

Described by a former Independent Mail journalist as “in his element when spreading joy” and there may be no better description of the man with the big, always-ready smile.

Hilton, the former principal, wrote that it was “destiny” for  Radio Kennedy to find a home on the football field all those years ago.

“He was without a Harvard degree or Pulitzer Prize or professional sports contract, but his fame surpassed all those accolades,” Hilton wrote. “And the story is simple: love and compassion can change lives. It has changed his, and, in return, he has changed ours. And we are better people for having known him.”

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