Mike Ayers (born May 26, 1948) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

coach. He served as the head football coach at

East Tennessee State University East Tennessee State University (ETSU) is a public research university in Johnson City, Tennessee. Although it is part of the State University and Community College System of Tennessee, the university is governed by an institutional Board of Tr ...

from 1985 to 1987 and

Wofford College Wofford College is a private liberal arts college in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It was founded in 1854. The campus is a national arboretum and one of the few four-year institutions in the southeastern United States founded before the America ...

Spartanburg, South Carolina Spartanburg is a city in and the county seat, seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 38,732 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the 11th-largest c ...

from 1988 to 2017, compiling career

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

coaching record of 218–160–2. Ayers'

Wofford Terriers Wofford College sponsors 18 sports for men's and women's programs, competing as the Terriers. The Terriers compete in the Southern Conference, and have been a part of the league since the 1997–98 academic year. Wofford and the other SoCon memb ...

won five

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly ...

title, in 2003, 2007, 2010, 2012, and 2017.

Playing career

Ayers played

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

and

offensive tackle Offensive may refer to: * Offensive, the former name of the Dutch political party Socialist Alternative * Offensive (military), an attack * Offensive language ** Fighting words or insulting language, words that by their very utterance inflict inj ...

for the Tigers of

Georgetown College Georgetown College is a private Christian college in Georgetown, Kentucky. Chartered in 1829, Georgetown was the first Baptist college west of the Appalachian Mountains. The college offers 38 undergraduate degrees and a Master of Arts in educat ...

. He also played for the baseball team and competed in gymnastics and wrestling.

Coaching career

Ayers began his coaching career as a graduate assistant and

defensive coordinator A defensive coordinator is a coach responsible for a gridiron football (American football) team's defense. Generally, the defensive coordinator, the offensive coordinator and the special teams coordinator represent the second level of a team's c ...

at Georgetown College in 1974 and 1975. He again performed the role of assistant during stops at

Newberry College Newberry College is a private Lutheran college in Newberry, South Carolina. It has 1,250 students. Accreditation Newberry College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to award bac ...

and the

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...

. In 1980, Ayers arrived at Wofford as defensive coordinator for the Terriers under head coach

Buddy Sasser George F. "Buddy" Sasser is a former American football coach and athletics administrator. As commissioner of the Big South Conference between 1989 and 1996, Sasser was responsible for increasing membership, gaining automatic bids to the NCAA bask ...

. Ayers followed Sasser to

, where he resumed his role as defensive coordinator before taking over the head coaching position in 1985. Ayers was hired as the head coach of the Terriers in 1988 by athletic director Danny Morrison over a milkshake at Asheville's Biltmore Dairy Bar. Wofford moved up to NCAA Division I-AA in 1995 and joined the

in 1997. Under Ayers, the Terriers claimed five Southern Conference football championships, in 2003, 2007, 2010, 2012, and 2017. Ayers won the

Eddie Robinson Award The Eddie Robinson Award is awarded annually to college football's top head coach in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). The award was established by The Sports Network, since merged into Stats Perform, ...

, given to the most outstanding FCS head coach, in 2003 after guiding the Terriers to a 12–2 record. He holds the black belt in karate, and is an accomplished artist and fly fisherman. Ayers announced his retirement from coaching on December 13, 2017 after his 30th season at Wofford. He is the longest-serving coach in Wofford history and has the most wins (207) in program history. As a Wofford coach he was passionate about his players being strong men and students and doing it “the right way”, and his players have succeeded as students and in life to an exceptional degree. He was, and is, the ultimate Short-haired Dog!

Head coaching record

References

External links

Wofford profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ayers, Mike 1948 births Living people American football linebackers American football offensive tackles East Tennessee State Buccaneers football coaches Georgetown Tigers football coaches Georgetown Tigers football players Newberry Wolves football coaches Richmond Spiders football coaches Wofford Terriers football coaches People from Georgetown, Kentucky

Playing career

Coaching career

Head coaching record

See also

References

External links