| Mike Peavy hung up the phone at his Hampton, S.C.,
home and took a deep breath.
The voice on the other end was telling the
long-time football coach about an unbelievable offer.
Peavy would be the head man at a powerful
school near Charleston, the town where he grew up. His paycheck would increase. He would
have total control.
It seemed like a dream come true.
Just one hitch, though. Mike Peavy had
already told Salisbury High School officials that he was coming to take over for Raymond
Daugherty.
Here is where you learn what type of man
Salisbury is getting in an attempt to turn around what has become a moribund program.
Peavy said no to the golden opportunity.
“Nothing aggravates me more than
someone saying something and me not being able to believe it,” Peavy said Tuesday
afternoon while preparing for an informal workout with about 40 Hornet prospects.
“I’m very critical of people about that. How critical of myself would I be if I
gave my word to come here and turned on them?”
So he convinced his defensive coordinator
David Keyes, who once played for Catawba College coach David Bennett at Newberry, and a
former offensive coordinator, Jim Rowell, to pull up roots and visit Salisbury. They loved
it and said, “I do.”
Which Peavy hopes translates into, “We
will” — as in “we will win plenty of football games.”
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Peavy turned down the job near home because
he was already thinking about the Salisbury players.
When he accepted, he knew he had become the
fifth head football coach at Salisbury since 1990. If he suddenly reneged on his promise,
the Hornets would be looking for Coach No. 6.
“If I was a kid and was constantly
changing coaches, would I want to play?” Peavy wondered. “That’s not good
for kids. It makes them leery.”
Losing at Salisbury has been bad enough.
Since 1990, the Hornets are 38-80. In the past five seasons, Salisbury is — ouch!
— 7-47.
And Peavy knows that.
“You don’t dwell on it because
it’s a new year,” he explained, “and you have to erase it. But it’s in
the back of your mind.
“No coach takes over to be 5-5. No
coach expects to go 0-fer. You come in expecting to win every game. It may not happen but
that’s got to be your expectations. I coach because I want to be a state champion.
And I want these kids to experience that.”
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Peavy describes Hampton, S.C. as
Hooterville.
“You’re an hour from
civilization,” he says. “Savannah, Charleston and Augusta are all an hour away
so you have to plan to get hungry if you want something besides fast food.”
In a state where high school football
rules, the program was a civilization away from big-time too. It was 1-9 before Peavy got
there and when he left, it had rung up seasons of 6-4 and 8-3, winning the school its
first playoff game in 17 years.
“It really gave the community
something to rally around,” he said. “I loved it there. I could’ve retired
there. But after five years, I wanted a change.”
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He’s getting it here, where he says
the school population is the same but not the demographics.
“I had great kids but not great
athletes,” Peavy said. “That’s why I remember the first meeting I had here.
I really felt, with the athletes I had seen walking around and the ones I had talked to,
that they should be successful.
“Itold them, ‘All you have to do
is work half as hard as our staff. There’s a lot they have to do — be more
committed and be more disciplined, but I think kids want discipline. You can be hard on
them but they want to know you care.”
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Nicholas Skinner can tell the Hornets about
caring. He was Peavy’s quarterback at West Hampton three years ago. Now a junior at
Clemson, he’s doing an internship this summer at Salisbury High. He sleeps on
Peavy’s couch.
“He’s out here 12 hours a
day,” Peavy said proudly, nodding toward Skinner as if he was his own son. “He
lets me know that maybe I’ve done something right.”
And Skinner has a message for each and
every Hornet about his former coach.
“They can expect to win some football
games,” he smiles.
But Salisbury hasn’t won many, Nick.
“We didn’t either before he
came,” Skinner shoots back.
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One other thing the Hornets are getting
used to — a South Carolina football mentality.
If a county in South Carolina had five
schools like Rowan, there would be a fever pitch concerning summer football. But here, it
takes a backseat to summer basketball and Legion baseball.
“In South Carolina, don’t expect
to eat dinner in a place like Gaffney at 6:30 or 7,” Peavy says. “They close
down the towns. It’s not unusual to see an average of 15-16,000 fans at a game.”
They also coach a bit differently below the
border too.
“It’s a big shock for these
kids,” Peavy smiled. “Yesterday, I didn’t think practice was going like it
should and we laid the hammer down. They were like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ But
that’s just where we come from.”
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And now, Peavy would like to give fans here
a South Carolina flavor. Ludwig Stadium is being painted. “Hornets” are painted
all over the place. A brick walkway with the letters “Hornets” carved into it is
a beautiful sight. New facilities are popping up. Realignment gives the Hornets a new
group of schools to play.
So it’s the perfect time for the Peavy
plan to begin.
“I never thought I’d leave South
Carolina,” he admitted. “But every time I visited here, it just seemed like a
good fit. I wasn’t just meeting athletic kids, I was meeting good kids.
“I really feel the administration and
community are committed to this program. I don’t think they’re giving us a bunch
of lip service.”
Peavy isn’t lip service either. He
proved that when he hung up the phone that day after the super-duper offer to go home.
He didn’t go home, though. He came
here.
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Contact Ronnie Gallagher at 704-797-4256 or
rgallagher@salisburypost.com .
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