TIFTON — Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College’s baseball season starts Friday, Jan. 27 and softball begins Jan. 28. Those are the first two games of the spring sports seasons for the Stallions and Fillies, but they are also the first games for new ABAC athletic director, Chuck Wimberly.

Wimberly was hired in November 2022, succeeding Alan Kramer in the role. Kramer remains at ABAC as Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students.

Abraham Baldwin was in between sports seasons when Wimberly began, but while he’s the newcomer on campus, he is far from a newcomer in the world of athletics and education. Wimberly comes over from ABAC from its Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association rival, East Georgia State. Before then, Wimberly spent many years in grade school education, many of them at Thomas Jefferson Academy in Louisville and Piedmont Academy in Monticello.

Now in Tifton, Wimberly is getting to know his coaches and community. Both are extremely important, he said, in growing ABAC bigger and bigger. For that, he has short-term and long-term goals.

“Grow athletics and have a vision,” he said. “That’s who I am and what I want to do.”

Paramount, of course, is helping student-athletes. “Give them the best experience they can possibly have,” he said. This does not only apply to winning, but also to gear and facilities.

Wimberly praised Kramer for what he has done for athletics at ABAC. Kramer has spent three decades in Tifton, starting as a tennis coach and working his way to athletic director and now, Dean.

“I’m trying to take the baton from him and run with it,” Wimberly said, “I want to see how far I can take it.”

Good news. Abraham Baldwin does have a new sport. Cross country was announced last spring and competed in its first season during the fall under head coach Mike Beeman. Wimberly thinks highly of the staff, who came from a variety of backgrounds. He said he is feeling good vibrations and a lot of energy from Beeman, Jen Walls, Larry Byrnes, Dale White, Matthew Williams and Chris Earls, the coaches in charge of ABAC’s eight sports.

Wimberly’s knowledge of athletics runs deep. He has coached a bit of everything and has done a lot of winning. As head football coach at Thomas Jefferson Academy, Wimberly won GISA (now GIAA) state titles in 2000, 2006 and 2006 and made five other championship game appearances. Besides football, he’s coached baseball, been head of the school and head of the coaches’ association and even scouted for arena football.

Wimberly said he’s tried to be versed in many things. He said it is essential to being a coach.

“In the coaching world, you do whatever is needed to help them be successful … Sometimes you have roll your sleeves up and jump in wide-open and see if you can make it happen.”

He definitely knows people. Years of athletics and administration mean Wimberly has plenty of connections around the state. He plans on using this network to ABAC’s advantage.

“In order to grow, you have to know people so they can help you grow,” he said. “You can’t do it by yourself.” Wimberly said he asked his coaches to use their connections as well. When he talks about the staff needing to be a family, he wants it to be more than a label or phrase. “You have to really do it if you want to be successful,” he said.

Wimberly relishes mixing the staff’s experiences with his own to make a bigger and better athletic program.

Priority No. 1 this spring for Wimberly is networking and building relationships on and off campus, in Tifton and Tift County. Buying-in is of utmost importance. “Talking to people about what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to accomplish because you’re going to need their help.”

Wimberly would like to add sports to ABAC. In the past, the college has been home to men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and football. Football was last played in 1936, disbanding after a gymnasium fire burned all of their equipment.

Athletic growth at Abraham Baldwin is beneficial to everyone, he said. “It makes a town grow,” he said. “I think Tifton’s a great town.”

Wimberly said he is big on marketing and branding. “I think that’s what the tool is to move us forward,” he said. On campus, sports have been getting a boost lately from the state-of-the-art broadcast facility. Players have been introducing themselves on ABAC television broadcasts and talking about their teams.

Long-term?

“To be a four-year institution athletically,” Wimberly said. “That’s my goal.”

Several degree courses have been expanded to four years locally, but it’s been much longer since four-year athletic programs have existed in Tifton. That history stretches back to when the campus was Georgia State College for Men, which changed to the two-year Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in 1933 during a statewide college shakeup.

Several elements in a potential full four-year move are out of his control, of course, heavily dependent on decisions at the University System of Georgia. With so many elements not up to ABAC itself, Wimberly cannot offer a timetable on when that could happen. But he’s ready if and when it does.

He borrow a quote from a former coach of his: “Are you willing to run the race when you don’t know the distance?”

“My goal is to see whether I can grow athletics, No. 1, to making it the best it can be, no matter what division or what league you’re in,” Wimberly said. “Then, No. 2, would be ‘Could you be a part of this growing into a four-year athletic program. That would be my goal, my dream. I’m willing to run the race.”

He sees so much potential in growth here, both in enrollment numbers and in athletics. “{ABAC] is in a great town” with its accessibility and location. “It has all the elements to explode in population and growth and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Wimberly knows that behind every coach is a strong family. He and wife, Roxanne, have been married 29 years. Their eldest daughter, Madison, graduated from East Georgia before she finished high school, and is a marketing coordinator at the University of North Georgia. Youngest daughter Brianna is a student at Robert Toombs Christian Academy in Lyons.

“Your coaches are your extended family,” he said, “but your real family is the one who allows you to chase your dreams.”