Bobcats show appreciation to Wilson

Published 12:51 pm Saturday, August 10, 2024

Sometimes, the No. 1 personality in a college athletic department isn’t the winningest coach. Not that he or she wasn’t successful leading a sports program, but their presence, influence and reliability extends beyond one job.

Jimmy Wilson was that presence at Georgia College & State University as both the head golf coach and an associate athletic director. At the end of July, Wilson retired from his full-time duties at the Milledgeville institution. On Wednesday the Bobcat athletic community and its supporters showed up to show their appreciation for Wilson’s work at a special reception.

In attendance were former Bobcat golfers, the athletic director who first brought Wilson to GCSU Stan Aldridge, and the commissioner of the Peach Belt Conference David Brunk.

Wilson, himself a GCSU graduate in 1986, coached Bobcat golf for 20 seasons and was added to athletics administration in 2015. He represented the south/southeast region in the NCAA Division II men’s golf committee and was chair of the committee in 2015-16. Wilson is a four-time Peach Belt Conference Coach of the Year, and one of his teams in 2008 finished a program-best fourth in the Division II National Championship. They followed it up with a fifth-place finish in 2009. In all, Wilson and the Bobcats played in nine NCAA tournaments and placed fifth four times. The most recent was in 2012.

One of those former Bobcats to speak Wednesday was Carter Collins of Claxton, who is now the head men’s golf coach at Georgia Southern University (and appreciative to be in a place with blue skies after seeing 16 inches of rain from Debby fall in Statesboro). He played at Georgia College from 2001-2005 and earned All-America honors in 2004. This upcoming season will be his 18th in the Georgia Southern program, 11th as head coach. He’s won Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year four times.

For Collins, his impression of Wilson (he learned to call him “Jimmy” and not “Coach” his first day at Little Fishing Creek Golf Course) is that he was one who wasn’t in the profession for the trophies. Wilson has trophies, yes, but Collins said playing for him meant playing for a man who cared about you.

Even the current GCSU athletic director, Wendell Staton, had an opinion of Wilson prior to becoming his boss in 2009. Staton was himself a college men’s golf coach in North Carolina from 1996-2002, and he recalled Wednesday when he saw Wilson’s GCSU team and how “classy” they looked. He wanted his teams to look just like them.

Wilson, though, was a fixture at any and all Georgia College contests from The Centennial Center to the West Campus complex. He said one might still see him showing up to support his school even if it is not as often.