Pep rally tips off 1st ever Winter Homecoming

Published 11:00 am Friday, January 13, 2023

TIFTON — Energy went through the roof Jan. 7, Saturday morning at Tift County High School. The first ever Winter Homecoming was to take place in a few hours and basketball teams, cheerleaders and a few alumni wanted to make sure they were ready for it.

A pep rally combined these groups at the gym. What began with speakers gave way to contests and plenty of hype.

Travis Williams, a former Blue Devil who has had a long record of success coaching basketball in high school and college, made the drive down from Atlanta Saturday morning. Though busy planning the 2nd annual HBCU All-Star game, Williams stuck around all day and night, watching his alma mater come away with a double victory against Thomas County Central.

Williams was one of the main speakers at the pep rally, telling the Tift youth how his story began on a street just like their own. Born to a young mother, he lost her when she was 30 years old and Williams was 12.

“I was able to use sports, basketball, to focus,” Williams said. He credited head coach Tommy Blackshear with setting up the rest of his life. “I remember it like yesterday,” said Williams. Blackshear asked what his young player planned to do after high school. Williams’ plans were joining the military and Blackshear wanted to know if he’d considered college.

No one in Williams’ family had attended college, but he listened to his coach and got on a collegiate academic path at Tift County High. “He believed in me,” said Williams, calling it a turning point in his life. Not only did he play collegiate basketball at Georgia State, not only did he graduate, but Williams earned a masters degree.

From there, Williams began his coaching career, which took him to East Tennessee State, Fort Valley State and Georgia State, as well as to Maynard Jackson High School in Atlanta.

Williams said his question to the youth was, “What’s your DNA? What’s your next step?”

Besides the coaching career, he has also become a major name in the promotion of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and helped them partner with CBS last year for the basketball All-Star game. Williams is still in awe of his role. “A Black man from Tifton, Georgia, launched it and founded it.”

“It goes to show you, whatever’s in your DNA,” said Williams, “you can do it.”

Blackshear said Tift was instilling its mentality in players from the sixth grade up. “Making no excuses and just try hard,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t get what you want out of it, but you’re still doing a mentality to become successful.”

The attitude extends far beyond basketball, Blackshear said. He told the players that, through Tift’s tradition, the mentality of success extended to their parents, their coaches and local businesspeople.

Blackshear spoke of the late Anthony Bateman, about Bateman’s dedication. A point guard on the first Tift team Blackshear coached on as an assistant (1985-86), Bateman became deeply entwined with the athletic programs for years to come.

Bateman assisted basketball, football and track. Since his passing in 2019, Bateman’s legacy has been attached to the youth center near Matt Wilson Elementary, to Tift’s major track meet and to an annual basketball challenge.

Dedication was important to Bateman and Blackshear asked teams at the pep rally a question very important to the late coach. “Are you all in?,” Blackshear asked them. It was a group response: “All in.”

When Williams took over the boys basketball team at Maynard Jackson, he brought the squad down to the Tifton McDonald’s Invitational, where they played — and were handed their first loss by — the Blue Devils. He said it was important to the Jackson kids to see Tifton. “To show them how we do things,” Williams said, referring to the banners on the wall. “We have a lot of history and tradition.”

Tift is one of the few gymnasiums that not only displays state championship banners, but also state final fours and region championships.

Blackshear said that Tift County Schools is dedicated to growing Winter Homecoming. The announcement of homecoming queen has always been during football season and, at Tift, the homecoming king has been announced at the dance the night after the homecoming game. He said in the future that homecoming king might be attached to the Winter Homecoming.

“This thing is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger,” he said.

Eighth grade squads were invited to the pep rally with the ninth grade, junior varsity and varsity teams. Blackshear said he hoped everyone there could get better acquainted.

Both Blackshear and Lady Devils head coach Julie Conner have credited Winter Homecoming as being the brainchild of Maria Jacobs.

Following the speeches, attendees were broken down into sections of “old-school” and “new school,” with a high school graduation year of 2010 to separate them for competition. The most spirited of these was a cheering contest for a spirit stick. Old-school brought back a few cheers of their generations and assistant coach Vernon Moore busted out his M.C. Hammer dance moves. Earlier, Blackshear had shown a few moves of his own.