Mullins – Lon Spivey has been around the Pee Dee Academy athletic program in some shape,
fashion or form since the late 1970s. Spivey, the Golden Eagles’ athletic director, said the overall program
has never been as strong as it is right now.
“That would be a fair assessment,” Spivey said. “We’ve had some good years over the years but
not with the consistency we’ve had the last few years.”
The chance of that continuing remains high since Pee Dee will be returning all of its varsity head
coaches for the upcoming school year.
Pee Dee is the 2-time defending state champion in both baseball and softball, having won the AA
championships in 2022 and the AAA crowns this year after reclassification.
Also in this past school year, Pee Dee won its first ever 11-man football state championship under
head coach Jonathan King.
“What’s so impressive with our football state championship is we did it in AAA,” Spivey said.
“We’re one of the smaller schools in AAA and we won it.”
Spivey credits the just-graduated senior class for the recent success as well.
“We had such a good senior class,” he said. “A lot of them had been playing since they were
freshmen. They’d been through the battles so that when they were seniors they were ready.”
Brian Davis returns as the baseball head coach, while Will Eskridge is set to return as the
softball head coach. Both of their teams will be in search of a 3-peat this season.
Meagan Thomas and Kyle Drew will be back as the girls basketball and boys basketball
coaches, respectively. The Lady Golden Eagles went 20-2 and reached the semifinal round of the state
playoffs, while the boys went 19-6 and went to the semifinals as well.
Lorie Ann Rogers returns as the volleyball coach, Danny Kitchen as the girls tennis coach,
Michael Singletary as the boys soccer coach, Gil Wiggins as the girls soccer coach and Drew as the
boys golf coach.
Weslyn Stephens will be the cheer coach.
Drew and Davis will be two of the varsity football assistants along with Dan Barker, Stump
Spivey and Michael Martin. BJ Larymore will be the junior varsity football head coach and will be
assisted by Connor Garis, Kaiden Shaffer and Frank Drew.
Spivey believes one reason the program is so successful is that the vast majority of the coaches
are Pee Dee graduates. That definitely helps the retention rate.
“They know how things were in the past, and they have a passion for what we're trying to do,” he
said. “My staff isn’t trying to get up on someone else. Whatever sport is in season, everybody is all in.”
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