By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

HAMPSTEAD — Former Davie County quarterback and East Rowan head coach Tom Eanes’ phone buzzed more frequently than usual this week.

Even ESPN radio wanted to chat with the 67-year-old head coach of the Pender Patriots.

When your team wins a high school football game 106 to 83, people from Connecticut to California are curious about what the heck is happening on the North Carolina coast. When you use 106 and 83 in the same sentence, it’s supposed to be a blood pressure reading or maybe a crazy basketball game. But high school football? No way.

Needless to say, state scoring records weren’t just broken in Pender’s 106-83 win against the Hobbton Wildcats, they were shattered.

Pender, a 1A school in the Wilmington/Topsail area, accumulated 912 rushing yards, yes, 912 — and 3 passing yards. Two Pender backs scored six TDs apiece. One of them had 44 carries for 377 yards.

“We’re uptempo run, Hobbton is Air Raid pass, and they’ve got an outstanding quarterback and receivers, and they were chucking it,” Eanes said. “There’s no way we could simulate in practice what Hobbton can do. The first quarter took about an hour and we’re up 40-29. They cut it to 54-49 at halftime. It was 70-63 going to the fourth quarter, and then we finally pulled away a little bit. Who says you can’t score a few points by running the ball?”

Eanes joked that they may change the name of his school to Pener — that’s Pender with no D.

“I didn’t mind talking to people about the 106 this week,” said Eanes, who has seen just about everything during his coaching odyssey. “Maybe we lose the next one and nobody wants to talk to me.”

Like Eanes, life has a sense of humor. Fifty years ago Eanes, was the quarterback for a good Davie team. Like all high school quarterbacks, he believed his team should be throwing the ball more.

“I remember thinking that if I ever got to be a head coach, the only running we were going to be doing was on hills at practice,” Eanes said. “I guess things turned out different.”

In a world dominated by the spread offense, the Pender Patriots run the ball 98 percent of the time.

“That makes us different and a little tough to prepare for in one week,” Eanes said.

After Davie, Eanes went to college at Elon, where head coach Red Wilson was employing the split-back veer offense. The success of the veer helped Eanes gain more appreciation for the running game.

“Then I helped Pete Stout at (Burlington) Williams and at Catawba,” Eanes said. “I learned a lot about triple option offense, about wishbone football from Coach Stout.”

The high school head-coaching journey for Eanes began at East Lincoln in 1987. His teams struggled there. Then he didn’t have much success at Orange High in Hillsborough or in three seasons at Albemarle.

A turning point for Eanes came when he traveled to Georgia to learn from triple-option guru Paul Johnson, who was building a national power at Georgia Southern with the running game. Johnson had a special quarterback in Tracy Ham, and his offense became known as the Ham-Bone. Eanes became a Ham-Bone disciple and practitioner.

“This was around 1997, and everyone was stacking the box against my teams,” Eanes said. “The things I picked up from Coach Johnson were a lifesaver. And I learned a few more wrinkles from the coaches at South Point.”

At East Surry in the 1990s, Eanes had a six-season run with 35 wins and three playoff appearances. That was his first real taste of sustained success.

In 2000, East Rowan provided an opportunity for Eanes to get back close to his roots as a head coach. He brought the Ham-Bone with him to Granite Quarry, but things didn’t work out there. The Mustangs were 7-26 in Eanes’ three seasons.

He was hired to host a struggling Pender program in 2004. Pender had grown accustomed to taking its lumps before Eanes was hired.

But at Pender, Eanes found the perfect blend of athletes and work ethic. Something clicked. Pender started to win big.

From 2004-10, Pender went 58-37, unheard of results for the red, white and blue Patriots. Pender made regional finals In 2010, Pender played in the 1AA state championship game, but lost 21-7 to Albemarle. Eanes was honored as the 1A Coach of the Year that season.

Eanes might have stayed at Pender forever, but he had differences with administrators.

“They were going to shut the weight room down in January so kids would focus more on academics,” Eanes said. “That year-round work in the weight room is what made it possible for us to complete.”

So Eanes was on the move again. His next stop was Wilmington’s Ashley High.

After three years in Wilmington, he returned to the foothills, to be closer to family. He led (Morganton) Patton teams to unprecedented success and playoff appearances. Then he went to Bandys for two seasons. He had a 12-2 season there.

In 2020, he couldn’t say no when Pender wanted him to come back. Pender is the place that always be closest to his heart. The program had fallen on hard times after his departure. The Patriots went 23-79 in the nine seasons after Eanes left.

He got the Patriots back on their feet after COVID. In 2021, Pender was back in another regional final, but lost to powerhouse Tarboro.

Pender opened this season with an 88-34 win against Lejeune.

“I remember being amazed we scored that many, and I was thinking, ‘Man, we’ll never break 88,'” Eanes said. “But I was wrong about that. Now we go out and score 106, and we needed all of them.”

Eanes’ offensive coordinator is his son, Drew Eanes, who was one of his quarterbacks at East Rowan.

“We got a whole lot better when I turned things over to Drew,” Tom Eanes said.

Eanes is closing in on 200 career wins, although he’s still lost a few more than he’s won.

He’s always been happiest with underdog programs. He likes seeing the look on the faces of athletes who are learning how to win for the first time.

“I still teach a full schedule of classes, and that part of it does get a little tiring after 37 years,” Eanes said. “But it’s been a very good life as a coach. I still love football. I still enjoy practice as much as Friday nights, and I’ve got a wife (Carol) who understands how much I love the game. I go year by year now, but I don’t see any reason why I can’t keep doing it a while longer.”

Pender is 4-3 and plays in a split 12A/2A league where East Bladen, West Columbus and Whiteville are the bullies. Pender hosts Whiteville on Friday.

“Our kids need to stop reading their press clippings and come back to earth in a hurry,” Eanes said. “Whiteville is tough.”

But how do you come back down to earth after scoring 106? Even for Eanes, that won’t be an easy task.