"Goat" Hale began his illustrious 28-year coaching career at Pearl River College in 1922. He coached everything in the book at PRC for three years before moving on to Mississippi College as an assistant.  
His coaching career also includes tours with Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Southern Mississippi and Milsaps and a second stint at Pearl River in 1936. 

During his first three years at PRC, he lost only one game. Hale's 1922 team was 7-1, his '23 unit was 8-0 and the '24 PRC team was 7-0. 

The 1936 Wildcat team put together a 2-1-3 record and is the only year that the Wildcats have tied three games in one season. 

Hale reportedly earned his nickname "Goat" after running through an end zone fence after scoring a touchdown while playing high school ball for Jackson Central.

"Edwin Hale, playing for Central High of Jackson against Brookhaven in 1914, battered his way through the line, scored a touchdown, ran through the end zone and banged his head into a wooden builden, loosening a few planks. That's how Edwin Hale became Goat," accoring to the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum.

At the time of Hale's Pearl River induction was already enshrined in four other Halls of Fame, including the College Football Hall of Fame.

Hale, considered by many as the greatest running back in the history of Mississippi football, was tagged "Red Grange of the South" in an article reporting his death at the age of 87. 

Hale also played professional baseball for two years.

Hale left coaching in 1946 and began a new career as a sporting goods salesman, first with Jackson Sports Store, and then in Louisiana. In 1962 he joined Jerrel Jones in organizing the Hale and Jones Goods Co. That shoestring operation at the outset grew into a major corporation in the Jackson area.