You Can’t Go Home Again is the title of the autobiographical novel by Thomas Wolfe published in 1940.
We’ll beg his pardon.
Oh, yes you can.
“I’m truly a Bulldog through and through,” Franklin Clark III told more than 100 people who gathered Saturday for the Terry Sanford High School Booster Club Hall of Fame ceremony at Highland Country Club. “Being a Bulldog was the most important time of my life.”
Clark, 79, led his team—then known as Fayetteville High School—to a 25-1 record and a 55-53 victory over Durham for the 1965 N.C. High School Athletic Association 4-A championship before playing from 1967-1969 for the late Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He was one of 10 inductees in the booster club’s inaugural Hall of Fame.
Others were George Armstrong, Wayne Byrd, Chip Beck, Gil Bowman, Demetria Davis, Trey Edge, Shea Ralph, Bobby Spicer Jr., and Bill Yeager.
It was an evening of reliving the best days of their youth on the football and baseball and track fields, the basketball and tennis courts, and the golf course. An evening, if you will, of reliving Friday Night Lights, the championships and hearing the Bulldogs’ fans cheering them on in the games they once excelled at in their youth.
“This is a special night,” said Edge, who led Terry Sanford to the 1980 NCHSAA 4-A finals against Grimsley High School in Greensboro, “and means the world to me.”
Edge later played at UNC and today is the radio “Voice of the Bulldogs.”
“When I heard hall of fame, what I heard was the halls of Terry Sanford,” said Edge, whose late father, Junior Edge, led UNC to a 35-0 victory over Air Force in the 1963 Gator Bowl. “This honor will always be one of the proudest moments of my life.”
Beck starred for the 1974 Terry Sanford golf team, became a three-time All-America at the University of Georgia, and joined the Professional Golfers Association Tour in 1978. He earned four PGA Tour victories, finished second in the 1986 and 1989 U.S. Open, and second in the 1993 Masters. He competed on the 1989, 1991, and 1993 U.S. Ryder Cup teams, achieving a 6-2-1 record. And he posted a 59 on October 11, 1991, at the Las Vegas Invitational to become only the second golfer at the time to break 60 in PGA Tour competition.
“I was a Bulldog at Terry Sanford,” he said, “and I’m Bulldog forever.”
‘Your Honor As Much As Mine’
Bowman coached the boys tennis teams to a 585-41 record over 38 years and the girls tennis teams to a 368-46 record over 26 years, and also the girls basketball team for 32 years, achieving 491 victories.
He did not accept his enshrinement alone.
“I want all the players ever on my teams to know this honor is yours as much as mine,” Bowman said. “And thanks to the parents. You trusted me with your children. Let’s keep on supporting the next generation. And I will always be proud to be a Bulldog.”
Byrd graduated from Fayetteville High School in 1963, where he starred in football, basketball, and baseball. He was the Most Valuable Player on the 1963 football team and MVP on the 1962 baseball team.
“My wife, Sue, was always supportive and been a part of everything,” said Byrd, who later was a teacher at the school, became a principal for Cumberland County Schools, and was named Principal of the Year in 1993. “I couldn’t have done any of it without my wife. She’s my life.”
Davis graduated in 1998, where she was a track and field standout and earned an athletic scholarship to the University of South Carolina, where she became an All-America for the Gamecocks. She later won a gold medal at the 2003 World Championships in Paris and in 2024 was part of the USA Track & Field Olympic staff in Paris.
A sprinter, she is one of the most decorated athletes in USC history, winning six NCAA titles and induction into the USC Association of Lettermen’s Athletics Hall of Fame.
“But this one is special,” Davis said, “because it’s the inaugural class.”
She thanked her mother, who attended the induction. She also remembered her late father, an Army command sergeant who molded her track and field career.
Armstrong graduated from Fayetteville High in 1964, where he was captain of the football team as a quarterback and played defensive end and was a team punter. He was a starting pitcher and outfielder in baseball. Along with his wife, Carolyn Riddle Armstrong, he long has been a financial supporter of school athletics with funding for a press box, batting cages, a weight room and video screen at Armstrong Stadium.
“Carolyn and I talked about it,” he said about the video screen. “The Jumbotron produces a lot of money for Terry Sanford.”
Where there is need for financial support at the school, George and Carolyn Armstrong are there.
Ralph, class of 1996, was the most decorated girls basketball player in Terry Sanford history, scoring 3,002 career points and averaging 33 points per game. She once scored 61 points in a game and was named 1996 USA Today National High School Player of the Year. She attended the University of Connecticut, leading the Huskies to 2000 NCAA national championship and earned Big East Conference Player of the Year and All-America honors.
“If she were here, she would be very grateful,” Robert Ralph, her father, said.
Ralph is preparing for her sixth season as head coach of the Vanderbilt University women’s team.
“It’s been a real privilege for me to coach,” said Yeager, who in the 1970s coached Terry Sanford offensive receivers under Len Maness and the late Mackie Hall before succeeding the late John Daskal in 1991 as head coach. “It’s been an honor to coach some extraordinary men. I’ve been other places, but this (Terry Sanford) is home.”
Yeager Field is named in his honor.
Poignant Induction
Perhaps the most poignant moment was the induction of Bobby Spicer Jr.
A 1979 graduate, Spicer became one of the most heralded athletes in school history, participating in football, basketball, and baseball. He earned Mid-South 4-A Conference accolades in every sport and was voted Cumberland County’s Most Outstanding Male Athlete in 1979.
When the games were on the line, teammates knew Spicer had their backs.
He later competed in baseball at Campbell University, batting .409 as a first-year student to earn MVP and finished with a career .524 on-base percentage and .713 batting percentage. A retired bank executive, Spicer served more than five years as a member of the Terry Sanford Booster Club.
“Growing up, Bobby and I often heard the saying, ‘You are the company you keep,’” said wife Rory Spicer. “And looking around this room tonight, I think it’s safe to say we’re in pretty good company. While we celebrate the remarkable individual accomplishments, what brings us together is something we all share—a love of sports, an appreciation for teamwork, and the sense of community that comes from those experiences.”
She said his passion for athletics began with Midget League football, recreation league basketball, and Little League baseball. He became a fierce competitor, no matter the sport, with a will to win.
“He’s definitely someone you want on your team,” she said. “But what I appreciate most about Bobby’s athletic experiences isn’t the games he won or the records he set. It’s the people who were part of those experiences. The coaches who challenged him, believed in him and expected his best. The teammates who share the victories, disappointments, hard work and memories. Together, they learned discipline, perseverance, accountability and the importance of putting the team before themselves.
“Along the way, those teammates became lifelong friends.
“Bobby carried those lessons into his banking career, helping local businesses and families succeed and giving back to the community that had given him so much,” she said. “Over the past year, those friendships have taken on an even deeper meaning.”
No matter who you were in this room of inductees, you could feel the moment and a wife’s moving and loving words for a husband.
“As some of you know, Bobby was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer,” she said. “Since then, we have been surrounded by an incredible community of friends, former teammates and coaches. Some of those friendships began more than 50 years ago, on childhood ball fields and in the halls of Terry Sanford High School.”
She looked into the faces of all.
“And some of those friends are here tonight,” she said. “I have been overwhelmed by their kindness and support, but I can’t say I’ve been surprised. Because being a teammate doesn’t end when the season does. That, to me, is the true value of organized sports. It’s about giving young people a place to belong, mentors who believe in them and relationships that carry them through life’s challenges.
“My hope is that every child has the opportunity to experience that same sense of belonging. Tonight, we honor an extraordinary group of individuals, but also the coaches, families, teammates and community members who invested in them along the way. The games eventually end, but the team can last a lifetime.
“On behalf of Bobby and our family, thank you for this tremendous honor,” she said, “and more importantly, thank you for continuing to be part of his team.”
Epilogue
The Terry Sanford High School Booster Club Hall of Fame induction ceremony was an evening where Franklin Clark took the time to remember old teammates like Eddie Martin, and Hooper Hall before that 1965 championship season. And Coach Len Maness.
Where Gil Bowman said the Hall of Fame plaque belonged to all of those who competed under his coaching skills. Where Demetria Davis remembered a father who sent her on her Olympic way, and where Trey Edge reminded us that Saturday was a “special night” to share with every athlete who competed for the long and storied athletic history of the school along old Fort Bragg Road.
They say you can’t go home again.
But you surely can, and it was a night these old athletes and coaches of another time will remember.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
