STATESVILLE — You could ask any 5-year-old to
toddle into West Iredell High School and bring you back the head football coach,
and he or she could produce Mark Weycker with no sweat.
Weycker would fool no one on the panel of that
old game show, “What’s My Line?” Contestant Weycker would win absolutely
no money, just consolation prizes.
Everything about the 40-something Warrior boss
— from close-cropped hair to confident grin to hardy handshake to bulging calf
muscles — screams gridiron guru. Or maybe drill sergeant.
But while Weycker is exactly what central casting
would send down if you requested an extra for that football movie you’re
filming, Weycker’s defensive coordinator Tim Shuford fits no mold known to
man. When Weycker is jokingly asked for Shuford’s listed height in the Warrior
program, he quickly responds, “Oh, maybe 4-foot-2.”
Actually, Shuford’s at least 14 inches taller
than his big buddy’s estimate. Still, at 5-4, he’s not the guy you’d pick
out of a police lineup if they demanded that you identify the defensive
coordinator that robbed your piggy bank.
You’ve heard of the statute of limitations.
Well, Shuford has a stature of limitations.
Your first guess at Shuford’s occupation would
be the guy who fixes the vending machines or changes the filters. Or maybe
you’d guess he’s the feisty math teacher. That supposition would win you a
kewpie doll. That’s exactly what Shuford does during the school day.
Shuford turned 40 in January, and like so many of
us, has said hello to a few pounds and goodbye to a few hairs as the years have
rolled past. Bigger in the middle than at the ends, he’s even shaped more like
a football now than he used to be.
But that’s cool with Shuford, because
football’s been his life forever.
“I drove my parents crazy,” said Shuford.
“I lived football. Ate football, drank football, slept football.”
A child of the ’70s, you get the impression
that Shuford designed plays on the tablecloth while his family ate dinner. Then
he watched the NFL on TV, while he sorted his football trading cards. Meanwhile,
his electric football game hummed in the background.
Football’s huge to this guy. He named his
first-born Colt, a tag you don’t dole out unless you want your kid to be a
football player — or maybe the sheriff over in Love Valley.
Shuford’s second son is Payton, also a pretty
good football name.
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Shuford stopped growing early, but while short on
inches, he was long on desire. As a 140-pound offensive lineman, he made
all-conference for coach C.A. Frye’s powerful Statesville Greyhounds.
“Coach used to get me out of class to meet with
college coaches,” remembers Shuford. “He just wanted them to see me, that I
could play at my size.”
Obviously, no college coach interested in keeping
his job was going to offer a scholarship to a 140-pound lineman, but Frye still
got a kick out of showing off his prize pup.
“When I made all-conference, I think it meant
even more to Coach than me,” said Shuford.
Shuford graduated from Appalachian State, then
did his student teaching at West Rowan. He’d played offense all his life, but
switched sides of the ball and joined Randall Ward’s football staff as
linebackers coach. This was in 1986, the year after the Falcons had been
annihilated 48-0 by Statesville in the first round of the state playoffs.
“The West players were like, ‘You’re from
Statesville? What the heck are you doing over here? You guys killed us.’ ”
When Ward left for Davie County prior to 1989,
Ron Raper took the helm of the Falcons. Raper, now the defensive coordinator at
North Rowan, remembers Shuford as smart and intense.
“He picked up on stuff real quick,” said
Raper.
But Shuford left to rejoin Ward at Davie two
years later.
“We hated to lose Tim,” said Raper. “But
you can understand why he’d want to go with Randall, because Randall taught
him a lot.”
Shuford put in five years at Davie. He had a
great time and used his size to advantage. He always had his preseason picture
made standing in front of his linebackers.
“People would see that and would be convinced
we had this really huge team,” laughed Shuford.
Eventually, Shuford returned home to West Iredell,
where he’s been since 1997.
Shuford had always been an Iredell County guy
anyway. He never really left his roots, maintaining his home in Statesville even
when he was coaching at West and Davie.
One of Shuford’s Statesville neighbors all
those years, believe it or not, was Weycker.
“I finally was able to get him to stop driving
to West and Davie and come to work for me,” said Weycker. “Tim’s an asset.
He teaches hard and coaches hard in both football and track. He’s got some go-gettedness.”
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Shuford’s needed every ounce of his famous
“go-gettedness” in the never-ending quest to keep West Iredell football
competitive.
West doesn’t have a history as a football
school. The Warriors went 11-0 once, but it was so long ago that George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson may have been in the backfield.
“Football’s probably not ever going to be to
these kids what it was to me,” admitted Shuford. “Society’s changed. There
are more things to do. But football can still be real important to them.”
And things are looking up. After spending the
last four years trapped in the Southern District 7 with Statesville and Catawba
County schools that are as football-crazy as Shuford ever was, West has escaped
to the 2A Central Carolina, where no one except North Rowan and Ledford is on an
upward cycle.
“The last few years if we went 3-3 we had a
great conference season,” said Shuford. “So yeah, our kids definitely feel
they have a better chance in the new league. They walk on the field and see
teams with similar numbers and similar size and feel they can have success.
“We’re young. We ride a roller coaster. But
we’ve already got two conference wins. That’s a boost.”
But Shuford knows success will be tough to come
by tonight when the Warriors visit North Rowan.
“You really can’t look forward to playing
North,” said Shuford. “They look fun to watch, not so fun to play
against.”
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Contact Mike London at 704-797-4259 or mlondon@salisburypost.com
.
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