Tim McMahon feeling back at home in Morganton

Local high school football fans listening on the radio last fall took a trip down memory lane, with one prominent voice from the past making his return of sorts to the gridiron.

Tim McMahon, a 1981 Freedom High School graduate who coached the Patriots for 11 highly successful seasons from 1995-2005, called a number of games as color analyst with play-by-play man Bob Clark on the Big Dawg 92.1 FM.

McMahon, 60, coached his last football game in the 2019 season after a career that spanned 35 seasons, the final 24 of which came as a prep head coach.

“I had a ball doing (radio),” McMahon said. “I got to see some of the guys I know in coaching. I enjoyed watching high school ball from a different perspective and getting to talk about it. It kind of got my fix for high school ball, not being able to coach it.” 

McMahon’s coaching career took him from Freedom, where he was also athletic director in 2006-07 for one year in between football gigs, to Anson High School in Wadesboro (2007-08) and then to Emerald High in Greenwood, S.C. (2009-19). He stayed on at Emerald as athletic director, but a little over two years after McMahon retired from coaching, he and his wife, Janet, moved back to their hometown.

“We kind of thought we’d probably get back home eventually,” McMahon said. “When we left, we didn’t know how long we’d be gone. But it’s where I’m from, I’ve got a house here. Her mom and her sisters and my brother are all still here. Our family is here other than our children. So it was just natural.”

It’s also not far from where the couple’s children, Matt and Emily, call home. Matt is now a football coach at Gaffney (S.C.) High School, and Emily lives in Greenville, S.C.

“We can be to either of them in an hour and 10 minutes, hour 15,” McMahon said. “It might’ve been different if we’d gotten grandchildren when we were down in South Carolina, but we made the escape back north before we got trapped.

“We loved South Carolina, don’t get me wrong. Our time there was awesome. Matt had a great school to go to and a great playing experience, and Emily had a great time in school. But home’s home.”

Playing days

McMahon started at right guard as a senior for the 1980 Patriots, coached by hall of famer Jug Wilson. He was part of an offensive line crew that included other notable names around the Burke County sports scene, including Robert Crawley, Tommy Sain and Tom Dula.

“I only played one year of varsity football,” McMahon said. “Freedom was good back then, and some of us as juniors didn’t make the varsity.”

Even in high school, McMahon knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

“I always knew I wanted to coach,” he said. “In high school, I actually coached little league basketball and baseball around here and loved it.”

McMahon’s passion for football and for coaching was stoked further, however, by Wilson, whom he calls one of his biggest coaching influences.

“He was a special man,” McMahon said. “If you grew up in Burke County, everybody knew Coach Wilson and high school football were one in the same. 

“Playing for Coach was something I looked forward to, and he meant a lot to me. … Coach was such a wise man. Not a lot of people knew how smart he was. He always had special insight. He was also so funny, and he would teach you through comedy. But he was full of life lessons.”

McMahon said one time that Wilson wasn’t in a joking mood came near the end of Fat Friday VII. Freedom entered the season-ending game in Morganton having lost three straight years versus rival East Burke. 

“We wanted to win so bad,” McMahon recalls. “We needed to break that streak. I kind of prided myself in being smart in the game and really being in-tune and always watching out for everybody and being a coach on the field, is what I thought.”

Freedom scored a fourth-quarter touchdown to take a lead it would not relinquish in a 13-11 victory, but McMahon says he has never been able to live down what happened immediately after the TD. 

“I don’t know what got over me or what happened, but the next thing I remember is I’m on the sideline just cheering and slapping high-fives,” McMahon said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where something just dawns on you, like somebody’s poured hot water all over you and you just want to melt. But I started hearing my name, McMahon. 

“About that time, he turned to me. And you know, Coach (Wilson) couldn’t see real well, but he could see enough that it was me, (number) 64. And I remember that foot rising up. In my jubilation, I had forgot we had to kick the extra point, and I’m on the extra-point team obviously. I think I ran faster from that bench at Freedom High School to that extra point than I’ve ever ran in my life, in fact I know I did. And I got on there and we kicked it.

“I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life than the whole county watching me forget to stay out there on a PAT, and now I’m going to be a coach.” 

With Wilson’s help, McMahon went from Freedom to Catawba College to play football. 

“That’s one of the reasons I went to Catawba honestly,” McMahon said. “Coach had played there and was in the (college’s) hall of fame, and he kind of helped get me over there.” 

McMahon had worked his way up the Catawba depth chart and came out of spring practices as a sophomore in position to start as a junior that fall.

Instead, his playing days were over.

Coaching career

New head coach Pete Stout had arrived at Catawba that same offseason.

“By July, he had sent me a letter saying he didn’t think there was a spot for me on our football team,” McMahon said. “And I thought, ‘What in the heck?’ But the letter said, ‘I do think you would make a good football coach, and you can keep your scholarship money if you come back and join our staff as an assistant coach.’ And that’s how I started coaching.”

So, McMahon spent the next two seasons finishing his degree as a member of the coaching staff.

“I thought, well this will be neat,” McMahon said. “I wasn’t getting beat up on anymore, but you talk about hours. We didn’t have a large staff, it was only five of us (assistants). I did every job known to man. 

“But it was a great experience at that age to learn from Coach Stout and that whole coaching staff. I gained a lot more by coaching than I ever would have by playing, I promise you.”

The first summer after McMahon switched from playing to coaching, while helping under FHS coach Ken Treadway for one week of preseason camp before he went back to Catawba, a chance encounter led to what became his second stop in coaching.

North Carolina head coach Dick Crum and offensive coordinator Randy Walker had both come to Morganton to recruit speedy FHS star Larry Whiteside.

“Over the course of the day, I started talking to (Coach Walker) to pick his brain, and he had a lot of downtime between practice,” McMahon said. “I guess he got to see me work a little bit, and before he left he told me if I was interested in being a graduate assistant coach, the first opening he got he would give me a call.”

One year later, Walker did, and McMahon served as a GA at UNC for two seasons. 

“He said, ‘Be here on Monday,’” McMahon said, “and this was on a Friday. And I said, ‘I’m on my way coach.’”

Then when Stout left Catawba for the Freedom job, new Catawba coach Bill Mauldin offered McMahon a chance for his first paid football coaching gig, but at an unlikely spot: wide receivers coach.

“I didn’t even know what a wide receiver looked like,” McMahon said. “I had only worked with offensive linemen, period. Played offensive line, coached offensive line. And he said, ‘Well I ain’t got none of that, but I got wide receivers. You’ll learn it, come on if you want to.”

McMahon said he made $1,100 that first year in 1988, plus free room and board with new bride Janet as they served as dorm parents. From there, McMahon moved to O-line coach at Catawba, then to offensive coordinator. 

In 1995, he made what turned out to be a career-long shift from college assistant to high school head coach when he took the Freedom job, also teaching history and P.E. at his alma mater, where he was charged with replacing Johnny Anderson, his former Patriots position coach and another of his role models.

“Coach Anderson was a tremendous influence on me,” McMahon said. “He had been the nuts and bolts kind of guy. He was the one that kind of did our strength and conditioning. He had a tremendous impact on my work ethic and on (me) doing right, always pushing yourself to do the best you can. He was a hard man, but he made a big impact on me and all of us really. 

“If you talk to pretty much anyone that played for him, it isn’t going to be very long before some story about Coach Anderson starts floating down. We laugh today, but back then, we probably would’ve cried.”

McMahon’s first season at the helm at Freedom was a mostly forgettable 2-9, but McMahon’s Patriots teams never finished under .500 again. And he ended that season with another lifelong Fat Friday memory despite a loss to East Burke.

Cavaliers kicker Travis Jones had been diagnosed with leukemia, and McMahon said as he recalls, was going back and forth to Winston-Salem getting treatment.

“East Burke was not very good either that year,” McMahon said, “but there was still a lot of people there, and it was a tightly contested game, went into overtime. We get a sack and stop them back about the 20-something yard line. They’re trying to kick a field goal, and it’s going to be a long field goal.” 

McMahon said he had watched Jones, a freshman, kick during pregame warmups and didn’t feel he had the distance to make the go-ahead field goal in a 14-14 game.

“I was more concerned with let’s not run into him, do something dumb here, and give them a first down,” McMahon said. “When he kicked it, we’re on the fieldhouse end at home, that ball looked like it was about 6 feet off the ground, and I thought, ‘This has no chance.’ And it kept going and going like a line-drive base hit. It hit the (crossbar) flush, I mean it should have bounced way back onto the field. Bounces straight up, comes down, hits the back side of the bar and falls over.”

A subsequent Freedom interception in the end zone on its OT possession ended the contest. 

“As heartbroken and sick as I was, I kind of thought if anybody deserves something good to happen, it’s that kid,” McMahon said. “I can’t help but think there was some special forces in that stadium making that ball go through that upright.” 

McMahon owned Fat Friday from there. He was 8-3 against EB, his eight wins still marking the most by any coach in rivalry history. His teams’ six straight wins vs. EB from 1997-2002 were also a rivalry record at the time.

“That’s not something that was easily done back then,” he said. “To win six in a row at that time in that series was pretty special.”

McMahon didn’t just enjoy success against the Cavaliers, though. His 11 Freedom teams combined to post a 90-41 record with three 10-win seasons and three Northwestern 4A Conference titles, making the 4A or 4AA state playoffs nine times and winning four playoff games in the state’s highest classification.

His 90 wins are still a FHS football coaching record, and his teams’ 25-game regular-season win streak spanning the 1998-2000 seasons remains unrivaled.

McMahon also served as an assistant baseball coach under Tommy Russ at FHS. Something had come up and left Russ one assistant coach short, so he approached McMahon – whom he knew loved baseball – about a week before the season and talked him into coming out.

“One year I think I ended up being five or six years,” McMahon said. “But I had a ball, and you talk about playing some of the best high school baseball. That league during that time was unbelievably good. We played Madison Bumgarner, Alexander (Central) was loaded, McDowell had a good team. It was just a really hard conference to play in. We never won the conference, but we made the playoffs several years.”

At Anson, McMahon’s gridiron teams were 21-7 in two seasons, reaching the third round of the 3A playoffs both seasons. His success continued at Emerald, where in 2017 McMahon was named 3A state coach of the year as his team reached the upper state title game.

“Emerald opened in the late 1990s and kind of had a hard time getting its footing for a while,” McMahon said. “You’ve got Greenwood, which has always been the big program there. It took some time. Emerald was a hard job. But we got a lot of good things done. I was kind of surprised we came as far as we did actually.” 

His 65 victories from the sideline at Emerald make McMahon the winningest coach at a prep program in both Carolinas. His teams went 176-112 overall in 24 seasons. 

McMahon also was part of the winning North Carolina coaching staff in the 2003 Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas.

Mentor to other coaches

One of McMahon’s greatest thrills came coaching his son and later coaching with his son at Emerald.

Matt was hired as a teacher and coach at Emerald after winning six rings (three ACC championships, three bowl games) in five seasons as a student manager for Clemson. Then after leaving Emerald, Matt’s first season on staff at Gaffney ended with the team defeating five-time defending state champion Dutch Fork and coach Tommy Knotts for the S.C. High School League 5A state title.

“He’s lived a charmed coaching life. I don’t know what it is, but he has the touch,” McMahon said.

McMahon’s coaching tree also includes, among others, familiar local names such as Tom Harper, Chris Powell, JK Adkins, Albert Reid and the late Chris Deal.

“It was really fun last year watching Chris (Powell’s Draughn) team advance that far,” McMahon said. “And then going up and watching Chris and JK (at Mount Airy) battle it out and getting to watch them play to see who’s going to the state championship was pretty special.”

It also includes Landon Mariani, McMahon’s quarterback for much of the afore-mentioned FHS regular-season record 25-game win streak. Mariani is now offensive coordinator at Barton College.

“I’m most proud of the kids that have played for us,” McMahon said. “We’ve had a lot of kids go on and do a lot of good things and been really successful. But obviously being a coach, I’m really proud of the ones that decided to coach and done well. I really take a lot of joy in watching their careers and pulling for them like crazy. 

“I take a lot of pride in the fact we had a bunch of assistant coaches go on and become head coaches too. I think there was 11 of them, and some of them came at all three places.” 

Perhaps McMahon cares so deeply for those who have coached under him because he learned it from his first coach, Wilson.

The year before Wilson passed away, in 1998, he penned a letter to the editor of The News Herald congratulating McMahon on his team’s Fat Friday win.

It read, in part: “Tim, I’ve always liked to brag about people who’ve played for me – doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. – but you’ve become the first one to become a head coach, and it tickles me to death to be able to add “head coach” to that list.

“You’ve done a very good job with the program and made non-believers into believers. You were always willing to do anything or sacrifice all for the good of our program. When you get older, it will bring a thrill to your heart to hear a player who played for you 20 or 30 years ago still call you “coach.” This is a reverent and honorable title. I believe you really deserve that title. 

“Remember, there will always be good times and bad times in the coaching profession, and believers will turn into non-believers in a hurry, so enjoy the good times and store up the good memories. It makes me very proud to call you Coach Tim McMahon.

“Yours truly, your old coach. Ralph ‘Jug’ Wilson.”

 A framed copy of the headline and article hung in McMahon’s coaching offices for the remainder of his career.

It now takes up residence in his study at home.

“I miss football,” McMahon said. “I miss the kids. I miss our coaches we developed relationships with. But we had some great years.”

Paul Schenkel can be reached at 828-445-8595 (ext. 2002) or paul@thepaper.media.