4 Questions with Warner Robins play-by-play announcer Tom Mobley

Today’s interviewee is Tom Mobley, the play-by-play announcer for Warner Robins football for 16 of the past 17 seasons. Mobley was an assistant football coach from 1985 to 2002 and the girls basketball coach from 1991 to 2015, winning more than 400 games. Mobley is Fellowship of Christian Athletes rep serving Houston and four other counties. Mobley will be at the mic along with another former Warner Robins assistant, Ben Beatty, on Friday for Warner Robins’ Class 5A quarterfinal game at No. 1-ranked Blessed Trinity. The game can be heard on Sportsmic.com.

Tom Mobley, Warner Robins’ play-by-play announcer

1. How did you become a play-by-play man? “In 1972, one of my Christmas presents was a tape recorder. I began doing play-by-play in the backyard playing basketball, and that led to me announcing softball games at P.E. in junior high, copying Milo Hamilton, the Braves’ announcer at the time. My nickname when I go back home over 40 years later to Abbeville, Ala., is still ‘Milo.’ The Lord led me out of coaching football in 2002 to be able to be at home more with my family, and in the spring of 2004 my good friend Mike Davis asked me to do color commentary on the Warner Robins games with him on the local radio station. Within two-three years, we had added enough stations to broadcast all of the Warner Robins, Northside and Houston County games, so I became the Warner Robins play-by-play guy. Mike, coach Conrad Nix and Greg Elrod formed Sportsmic several years later, and we now broadcast Veterans and Perry also.”

2. You came to Warner Robins in 1985, hired to be a football coach by Robert Davis, who passed away earlier this year. What would you want people to know about Coach Davis? “Coach Davis hired me at a Warner Robins basketball game in 1991. There was no formal interview, and I didn’t meet the principal until after football camp that summer. I had been coaching at Rumble Junior High for the previous six years. Things have changed. Coach Davis trusted his coaches to do their job. He was a great motivator, and he knew how to hire good coaches. He had a magnetic personality and knew how to get the best out of his players and coaches. He knew when somebody needed a pat on the back and when you needed other forms of motivation. I was blessed to be able to spend about four hours with him about a year ago. I will always treasure that time together.”

3. Warner Robins has made the state finals each of the past three seasons, and the current team is ranked No. 2. How would you contrast and compare this team to some of the others? “At times this team has looked like the best one in the last four years. The past three seasons we have been fortunate to play all of our playoff games until the finals at home. Travelling to Blessed Trinity will be an added challenge beyond facing a back-to-back-to-back state champion program. For the Demons in 2020, it starts on the line of scrimmage. The defensive front is probably as good as we have had recently. Outside linebacker Ahmad Walker is a four-year starter, and he plays with an extremely high motor. Middle linebacker Demarcious Robinson is the all-time leading tackler in Warner Robins football history. Sophomore defensive end Vic Burley may be the best defensive lineman at Warner Robins since Ron Simmons in 1976. At quarterback, Jalen Addie is a phenomenal athlete. He is a big guy with a strong arm and a true dual threat. He rushed for 157 yards last week vs. Woodward Academy. Guard Bobby Hutchinson leads a physical offensive line. Under Marquis Westbrook and offensive coordinator Jeremy Edwards, the Demons have become more balanced offensively. They run the ball better but are not as accomplished through the air as they were with Dylan Fromm in 2017-2018. The kicking game has improved as the season has gone, with Cary Payne kicking and punting.”

4. What has kept you in Warner Robins for your professional career and most of your adult life? And how has it evolved as a city and school since the 1980s? “Warner Robins has been a great place to raise a family. I have seen it grow from a population of 40,000 to 75,000 in my 35 years here. It is large enough to have a lot to do but without the big-city traffic. One major change has been the addition of Houston County [High] in 1991 and Veterans in 2010. Both were built on the south side of Warner Robins, which has drastically altered the Warner Robins zone. When I moved here in 1985, the south side of Watson Boulevard was Warner Robins and the north side of Watson was Northside. It is very common for me to see former Demons supporting their kids and grandkids, especially at Veterans games. My high school coach, Brad Bradford, told me when I was in college that the grass is not always greener on the other side. He had made moves that he later regretted. We attend a great church that both my wife, Cindy, and I got saved in in 1999 a year before she received a cancer diagnosis. The people of Second Baptist ministered to my wife and our family in so many ways during her chemotherapy, radiation and surgery that it would be difficult to leave SBC. I moved to Warner Robins thinking that I would move back to Alabama, but God has been good to me and led me to go on staff with FCA, where I serve 18 local schools, including Warner Robins.”