When you think of the Ware Shoals Football glory days, one name comes to mind. Tommy Davis spent 15 years as head football coach of the Hornets, getting Ware Shoals to the top of the football mountain.
Davis accumulated 111 total wins from 1975 to 1989, making him Ware Shoals winningest coach in program history. Ware Shoals named their football stadium “Tommy Davis Field” in his honor.
Last Friday, he made a trip back to the hallowed grounds of Ware Shoals. The Hornets put together a halftime ceremony to celebrate the extraordinary career of coach Davis. There to greet him were numerous former players, who spent the night reminiscing on what it was like to be led on and off the field by Tommy Davis.
Back in the 1970s, Ware Shoals was one of the few programs to give Tommy Davis a shot as a head coach. It’s safe to say he made the most of his opportunity.
“It gave me an opportunity,” coach Davis said. “I was an assistant coach at Laurens. My best friend was the principal over here, so he called me and I came over. We had some tremendous kids and who would ever dream that I would come into that situation and go 11-1 the first year.”
From the moment Tommy Davis stepped foot on campus, he brought a sense of urgency to the program. A fighting spirit to give your best on and off the field. This resonated with his players decades ago when they first met coach Davis and it still does today.
“My most memorable time was my senior year,” Richard Butler, a 1981 Ware Shoals graduate, said. “We won seven games and we built the talent from hard work.”
The 1982 season is one that is forever cherished in the Ware Shoals community. After watching one of their rivals in the Abbeville Panthers strike gold the year before in 1981, the Hornets were determined to make a playoff run. In the 1982 season, the Hornets upset the defending champion Panthers in week two. This set the tone for the rest of the year. Ware Shoals lost just one regular season game and eventually found themselves playing for a state title.
A match-up with an undefeated Blackville-Hilda team was on the docket. But again, it was the toughness and hard work that prevailed. A narrow 22-20 victory gave the Hornets the edge and their second championship in program history was hoisted in December of 1982, the first and only under coach Davis.
Tommy Davis coached with a certain poise and eagerness that set him apart from the other coaches in the state. It was never always about football to him. The teaching of life and morals came first.
“I hope my players learned responsibility and discipline,” coach Davis said. “It seems like life has gotten out of touch with that now, but, if you’re going to be successful, there are going to be some things that are not going to work the way you want them to work, but you just have to work through it. Sometimes the harder you work, it doesn’t pay off that day, but it will eventually all pay off.”
Scott Abrams, who went on to coach football at Brewer Middle School in Greenwood and Wright Middle School in Abbeville, played for Davis from 1980 to 1983. According to Abrams, conditioning is what set apart those dominant Ware Shoals teams.
“He used to make us run so many hills,” former player Scott Abrams said. “He believed in conditioning and at the time we hated it and I used to think he just ran us to death, but looking back I think we won a lot of games because we were in better shape.”
Seeing all his former players and support staff all these years later, he’s glad the community hasn’t changed. It all ties back into his mantra when coaching the Hornets:
“We work hard during the week so Fridays are fun,” coach Davis said.