By Seth Ellerbee
While traveling to St. Simons Island on Monday, longtime Brookwood coach and athletics director Dave Hunter received a call from the Executive Director of the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association informing him that he had been selected to the GACA Hall of Fame.
“I had no clue about it,” Hunter said on Tuesday. “Normally the Hall of Fame committee meets in December. I had been on the ballot for a few years and I just thought they met in December but Bobby McCallister, who is the Executive Director of the G.A.C.A., called me informed me of the selection. I just had no idea. I was awestruck and was at a loss for words.”
Hunter will be inducted June 2 in a celebration in Dalton.
“It is an extremely high honor,” he said. “I am very humbled and, I guess the biggest reason is that I was selected by my peers, some of those guys that are in the Hall of Fame. I have to say, every person that is in there deserves it. And over the years we have had some serious contests with some of the great coaches in there.”
Hunter, the executive director of the Corky Kell Classic which will be going into its 27th season in 2018, coached for 26 seasons in Georgia, beginning his career in 1976 at Peachtree High School School but he rose to fame as the head coach at Brookwood from 1987-2001. Hunter compiled a 176-52-1 record in his career with a 149-36 record at Brookwood. The highlight was a victory over 45-24 victory over Valdosta in the 1996 Class AAAA State Championship which capped off a 13-2 season for the Broncos.
“I think that this is the cherry on top of the ice cream as far as the career goes,” Hunter said. “You know, once you retire, from a professional point of view, this is probably the one thing you’d like to try to achieve or like to be included in to kind of put the cherry on top of the career.”
A family man, Hunter’s first thought was of his sons, and his wife Beverly, who was in the car with him when McCallister called. He also wants to thank many of the coaches who helped him along the way.
“I talked to both of my sons and my extended family and they’re all very excited for me, he said. “I talked to all of my coaches that I coached with at Brookwood and some several other guys and they all seem genuinely happy for me so I am very appreciative of that.”
Hunter continues to help other schools build and raise money for their programs and spends a lot of time on the telephone mentoring younger coaches.
The field at Brookwood was named in his honor and in 2013 he was the first football coach inducted into the Gwinnett Sports Hall of Fame, joining Jason Elam, his former kicker at Brookwood who went on to star for the Denver Broncos.
Hunter has also been instrumental in the building of the Gwinnett Touchdown Club as more than 600 attend the banquet every year.
Hunter, 70, lives Lawrenceville and been married to Beverly for 20 years. They have four children and five grandchildren.
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