Wham, Young selected for SCACA Hall of Fame induction

The South Carolina Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame Class of 2025 has a distinctly Clinton feel to it as the list of this year’s inductees include native sons George Wham and Andy B. Young.

Wham, a Clinton native and graduate of Thornwell and Presbyterian College, is the co-head athletic trainer and assistant athletic director at River Bluff and is credited with helping the S.C. High School League make strides in player safety.

A Clinton graduate, Young returned home to take over as head coach of the Red Devils football program in 1993, serving as head coach and athletic director until 2001 and leading Clinton to a state championship in 2009.

Wham and Young join former South Carolina player and Calhoun County basketball coach Zambolist “Zam” Frederick Sr., Midlands track and cross country coach Catherine Lempesis, veteran multi-sport coach David Smith, York football coach Dean Boyd and longtime Battery Creek track and football coach Joe Stroman in this year’s SCACA class of inductees.

Young was the Red Devils head football coach for 17 seasons, accumulating a 155-59 overall record and winning a state championship in 2009. In Young’s first season as head coach, the Red Devils won the Upper State championship before losing to Cheraw in the state finals. Clinton made it back to the state championship game in 2005, a 21-3 loss to Strom Thurmond, before landing the elusive state championship in 2009 with a 35-26 victory over Myrtle Beach.

“It’s been a long time and you miss a lot of that,” Young said of his coaching career. “You miss the camaraderie you had with all your coaches and things like that. I had some of the best assistant coaches – I had to be carried, and they certainly carried me.”

Young, who attended Erskine College on a tennis scholarship and began his teaching career in Laurens County School District 56, succeeded legendary head coach Keith Richardson and said that was no easy task.

“My first game after taking over everybody was ready to put a ‘For Sale’ sign in my front yard,” Young said, recalling a 31-22 loss to Eastside.

The Red Devils went on to win their next six games and 13 of their next 14 en route to the state finals.

Wham’s path to the SCACA Hall of Fame began with a knee injury in middle school that opened the a path to athletics that was more rarely considered during that era. He credited legendary PC head football coach Callie Gault for an introduction to PC athletic trainer Nelson Jones while Wham was undergoing physical therapy on his injured knee that led him to his career as an athletic trainer.

“It not for Coach Gault introducing me to Nelson Jones, and if it weren’t for Nelson Jones letting a little 7th-, 8th-grade kid tag along and be around his guys, you never know how things would have turned out, but that was certainly how my story started.”

Wham, who returned to PC’s athletic training staff for a time, becomes the fifth athletic trainer inducted into the SCACA Hall of Fame – a list that includes former Laurens trainer Barry Atkinson. Wham was also inducted into the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Trainers Hall of Fame in 2021.

As an advocate for player safety, Wham has given more than 50 presentations at state and national conferences on issues involving appropriate medical care in secondary school athletics. His worked has been published in several professional journals and other publications.

He also served as president of the SCACA in 2014-15 and spent 11 years as a board member.

“For me, working in high school athletics and the (SCACA) really represents the people I work with every day – the people we compete with across the state, people that I’ve worked with at different times over my career,” Wham said. “So, even though they’re not my athletic training peers, they’re my athletics peers. This represents coaches and people I’ve had relationships with across my career.”