Swansea football hires new coach with Lexington County ties
After a successful run at Wagener-Salley High, Willie Fox is returning to Lexington County.
Fox will be the new coach at Swansea High School. His hire was approved at Monday’s Lexington 4 school board meeting. He informed his team late Tuesday morning and will meet with his new team sometime this week.
The Pelion High graduate replaces Brent Wilder, who stepped down after five seasons.
“I have enjoyed my time at Wagener-Salley and I am proud that we were able to build a program there that has been as successful as it has been,” Fox told The State. “My family and I have been treated very well as War Eagles and couldn’t be more excited to be given a chance to be the next head coach at Swansea High School.
“We are going to do everything we can to build a program on Team, Accountability, Competition, and Toughness. My family and I are excited to be Tigers.”
Wagener-Salley, located in Aiken County, made the playoffs in all of Fox’s nine seasons at the Class A school. Fox went 69-31 at Wagener-Salley, including a school-record 12-win season in 2019 in which the Eagles reached the Class A semifinals before losing to Ridge-Spring Monetta. Fox was named Class A Upper State Coach of the Year that season.
W-S won eight or more games in a season five times. The Eagles went 7-4 in 2023 and made it to the second round of the playoffs.
Before coaching at Wagener-Salley, Fox was an offensive line coach at his alma mater Pelion for four seasons. He was an assistant coach for the 2023 Touchstone Energy Cooperatives all-star football game.
Fox takes over a Swansea program rich in tradition with six state championships, including three straight from 1992-94. But the Tigers have struggled recently and went 0-10 in 2023, their second winless season in the past three years.
Swansea’s last playoff appearance came in 2019. Its last winning season came in 2014 when the team went 7-5 under Chad Leaphart, who went on to coach at Gilbert and recently accepted the position as Lexington 1 district athletic director.
With Swansea’s vacancy filled, that leaves three openings in the Midlands at Gilbert, Lugoff-Elgin and Gray Collegiate.
Gilbert has recently reopened its search, going to split the athletic director and coach’s job. Applications for Gilbert AD and coach’s job are open until Jan. 28. L-E is expected to begin interviews this week while Gray’s interviews are expected to start in early February.
SC High School Football openings
School — Former Coach — New Coach
Bishop England — John Cantey — TBA
Fort Dorchester — Josh Smith (interim) — Shaun Lorenzano
Gilbert — Chad Leaphart — TBA
Gray Collegiate — Adam Holmes — TBA
Great Falls — Brian Kane — TBA
Greenville — Greg Porter — TBA
Heathwood Hall — Rick Reetz — Tymere Zimmerman
Laurens — Darryl Smith — Greg Porter
Lugoff-Elgin — Matt Campbell — TBA
Rock Hill — Bubba Pittman — TBA
Stall — Benjamin Lailson — Ken Freeman
Scott’s Branch — Randall State — Patrick Fleming
St. John’s — Mike Howard — TBA
Swansea — Brent Wilder — Willie Fox
Union County — Brian Thompson — TBA
Wagener-Salley — Willie Fox — TBA
Wando — Rocco Adrian — Isaiah Perrin
Wilson — Rodney Mooney — Glenwood Ferebee
This story was originally published January 23, 2024 at 12:35 PM.
