Wofford football coach Mike Ayers announces retirement
December 13, 2017
Mike Ayers announced his retirement, concluding a 30-year career as head football coach at Wofford College.
For three decades, Ayers guided the Terriers from the NAIA and NCAA Division II ranks to Division I and the Southern Conference. Along the way, the team made appearances in the Division II Playoffs in 1990 and 1991, the Division I FCS Playoffs in 2003, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016 and 2017, and claimed Southern Conference titles in 2003, 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2017.
“I’ve been very blessed to have had the position of head football coach at Wofford for 30 years and another three years as an assistant coach,” Ayers told a gathering of players, colleagues and friends. “Today is a bittersweet day in that I still love the game and my guys, but it’s time for us to take a different road.
Richard Johnson, director of athletics, says, “Over the past 30 years at Wofford, Mike Ayers has changed lives. Along the way, he has won a lot of football games. He will tell you that he is proudest of the men that his players have become. He is simply the embodiment of the values we at Wofford hold dear. His impact on first-generation college students will reverberate for decades to come.”
The story of Ayers as head coach at Wofford began in 1988. At the time a program that had a proud history, with bowl game appearances and wins over Southeastern Conference teams on its resume, had fallen on hard times.
Enter Mike Ayers, the young and energetic coach who had built East Tennessee State into a Southern Conference contender. Over milkshakes at the Biltmore Dairy Bar in Asheville, N.C., Wofford athletics director Danny Morrison and President Joe Lesesne discussed the opportunity with Ayers. On Dec. 22, 1987, he was introduced as head coach. Ayers’ impact on the Terriers was immediate. He transformed that 1-10 Wofford team into a .500 squad in 1988 and then led the Terriers to an NCAA Division II playoff berth in 1990.
Ayers has been the head coach of a Terrier team that, over the past two decades, has been the epitome of success within the Southern Conference. Since the start of the 2003 season, Wofford has posted a 69-37 mark in league play, a winning percentage of .650 to lead the conference. He has instilled his own intensity, character and pride into his teams. In the past 11 seasons, the team has reached the FCS Playoffs seven times.
Ayers is the longest-serving head coach of any sport in the college’s history. Among active FCS coaches, Ayers is fourth in wins with 218 in his career, 207 of which were earned at Wofford.
While he has led the program to victories on the field, Ayers also has been a driving force behind wins in the classroom. Since the inception of the Southern Conference’s All-Academic team in 2003, Wofford has led the way in the number of student-athletes selected with, at least six players selected every year. In six of the past nine seasons, a Wofford football player has been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s most prestigious liberal arts honor society.
Ayers completed his B.A. degree in 1974 and received his M.A. degree from Georgetown as well in 1976. He has been inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at both Glen Este and Georgetown.
Ayers was born on May 26, 1948, in Georgetown, Kentucky. He and his wife, Julie, have two daughters, Katie and Courtney, and a son, Travis. Courtney and her husband, Piotr Kalinowski, have a son, Max, and daughter, Madison Grace. Katie and her husband, Micah Gauntner, have two daughters, Amelia Rose and Avery. Travis and his wife, Sarah, have a son, Ezra Dowling.
Johnson will head a committee tasked with searching for the 23rd football coach in Wofford history.
Wofford College, established in 1854, is a four-year, residential liberal arts college located in Spartanburg, S.C. It offers 25 major fields of study to a student body of 1,650 undergraduates. Nationally known for the strength of its academic program, outstanding faculty, study abroad participation and successful graduates, Wofford is home to one of the nation’s 283 Phi Beta Kappa chapters. The college community enjoys Greek Life as well as 19 NCAA Division I athletics teams.
