Davidson’s Coach Fagg was genuine, no frills and an example for all | Opinion

The first time I met Dave Fagg, he was jumping out of a nondescript sedan rushing to shake my stepdad’s hand. He was a white man privileged enough to be the head coach of a football team at a prestigious college in North Carolina, still quick to show deference to a Black man who had just worked the graveyard shift at a Georgia Pacific paper plant in Russellville, S.C.

We were in a gas station parking lot somewhere in Columbia, roughly the midpoint between my home in St. Stephen, S.C., and Davidson, N.C. Coach Fagg wanted me to play football for Davidson College.

I thought he was trying to impress me by showing up himself instead of sending an assistant in charge of recruiting. It was probably the most efficient way to deal with my recruitment on that particular day. But it was also just who Coach Fagg was: genuine, no frills.

Other schools had sent me airplane tickets and met me at the airport. I was an 18-year-old high school senior trying to decide where I’d spend the next four years.

Before that moment between Coach Fagg and my stepdad Harris McDaniel, I was planning on going to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, or maybe following one of my friends to the Naval Academy. After that moment, and after having Coach Fagg talk to me like a long-lost friend during the 90-minute drive to Davidson rather than make promises about playing time or goodies, I was all but hooked.

Davidson went from being my third choice to my first. (It also helped that the maintenance and groundskeeping staff made the campus look immaculate, no small thing for a Black boy coming from an environment where things weren’t always so beautiful.)

Later I would be reminded of that moment when Mark Sanford jumped into my own sedan during my formative years as a journalist and waved off his political aides. Sanford was in Myrtle Beach to meet small groups of constituents, and I interviewed him as I drove around what was then the First Congressional District of South Carolina. He had that Coach Fagg ease about him.

Maybe college football coaches have to be as much politician as tactician. Coach Fagg blended those responsibilities well.

When I heard of Coach Fagg’s passing, it didn’t make me sad. He had lived a long, fruitful life. He had done what we all should strive to do, make the world better than we found it. News of his death made me think of what I’d seen University of South Carolina head football coach Shane Beamer do during the USC-Illinois Cheez-It Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Eve.

Beamer seemed out of control long before Illinois coach Bret Bielema supposedly taunted him late in the third quarter of a close game. Beamer seemed more petulant than passionate as his team unsuccessfully chased its 10th win. He questioned every call, marching up and down the sideline, angrily getting in the ear of the officials every chance he got.

I’ve watched several USC games this season. I had not seen that.

My wife was sitting next to me watching the game. She doesn’t pay attention to football much, but even she noticed he was “hollering and yelling and carrying on a lot.”

I get the emotions of athletic competition. But Beamer didn’t come across as a man who had just led his team to one of its most successful seasons in recent years. He came across instead like a child who had had his lollipop stolen and really wanted it back.

Beamer might be the nicest person in major college football. No one would know that based on his performance during that game as he exhibited behavior I suspect he would not tolerate from his players.

I won’t pretend Coach Fagg was perfect. None of us is. And I don’t speak for all of my teammates. But I can say that it wasn’t hard to take his demands to be better and to be responsible for my own actions because I knew he held himself to the same standard.

He understood the power he wielded because of the position he held.

I hope Beamer and other high-profile coaches in the Carolinas do as well.

This story was originally published January 3, 2025 at 6:00 AM.