William Witherspoon was the starting point guard for the top-ranked Berkmar basketball team in 2000. Although the team was winning, they were not shooting the ball well. Prior to departing for a road game, coach David Boyd assembled the players in the gymnasium and challenged them.
“We were going through out walkthrough and he’s like, ‘I don’t understand what’s so difficult about shooting the basketball. It’s just repetition and doing the same thing,” Witherspoon said.
“So, one of the managers gets him a basketball and Coach laces it from mid-range. And then he laces another one … and another one … and the whole time he’s doing it we’re all looking at each other in amazement because he’s talking to us the whole time. In that span he probably ran off 15 or 20 in a row and he didn’t miss until he sent us to get on the bus.”
Berkmar won that game and went on to win the state championship that season. During his 30-year career on the bench, Boyd’s teams went 641-210 and won six state championships at four different schools, a record unmatched in Georgia basketball. He was inducted into the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2023.
Boyd, 69, died peacefully in his home at St. Simons Island on Monday due to heart failure brought on by his long-time struggle with Type 1 diabetes. He is survived by his wife Genise, brother Cal and four children, Charisse, Geoff, Christina and Wesley. His brother Scott preceded him in death.
Boyd, the oldest of three sons born to Robert and Renza Boyd, grew up in Smyrna and played basketball and football at Campbell High School in Smyrna. While playing at Georgia State University from 1972-74, then-coach Jack Waters encouraged Boyd to pursue a career as a coach and educator.
He became the head coach at Campbell and took the Panthers to the state championship game in 1981, losing to Baldwin High. With most of the players returning, Campbell came back to win the championship in 1982, beating Cherokee in the state final.
That team included his brother Cal, 12 years his junior, who started as a freshman and went on to set records at Wake Forest. Cal later joined his brother as a coach and won two state championships at Mount Bethel.
“You don’t hear about brothers coaching brothers very often,” Cal Boyd said. “And it’s funny, I didn’t really know what to call him. I didn’t want to say ‘Coach Boyd’ and I certainly didn’t say ‘David.’ So, I just said ‘Coach’ and we kind of worked it like that.
He moved to Tucker High School in 1996, replacing his old GSU coach Waters, and won a state championship in his only season there.
Boyd took the job at Berkmar High School in Lilburn and finished second to mighty Savannah in 1998. The Patriots came back in 2000 and 2001 to win back-to-back championships.
Boyd had even greater success when he moved to Milton High School, where he took the Eagles to the championship game four times and two titles, 2010 and 2012. The 2012 team won two national tournaments and had five players earn Division I basketball scholarships, including Charles Mann Jr., who went on to play four seasons at Georgia and is currently on staff there as director of player personnel.
“I am so blessed and grateful to have had him come into my life,” Mann said. “He helped mold me into the player I was and the man I am. I will be forever grateful and thankful for him and all that he did. He has impacted so many people and will go down as the best coach in GHSA history and an even better man.”
But Boyd left after the 2012 season when the school self-reported “undue influence” for the high number of talented transfers that had moved into the program. Boyd resigned when told he could no longer coach the teams and always maintained his innocence.
Boyd told WSB-TV, “If helping players -- some of whom may be coming from the other side of the tracks – do well in school, become good citizens, earn scholarships, play in a winning program, if that’s undue influence, then guilty as charged.”
He finished his career by spending two seasons, 2017-19, at East Jackson High School, a school with almost no success at basketball. The team went 35-23 and made the state playoffs twice during his tutelage.
After retiring and moving to the Golden Isles, Boyd stayed active as a volunteer assistant at Brunswick High School and as a popular speaker at clinics around the country. He even wrote and published his autobiography, “The Life and Times of Hall of Fame Coach David Boyd.”
“He’s an unbelievable coach and disciplinarian,” said Georgia State coach Jonas Hayes, who played at Douglass and beat Berkmar in a Christmas tournament on a buzzer-beater – something Boyd never let him forget. “He is the definition of a winner.”
But just as important as the championships were the relationships formed between Boyd and his players.
“He loved us and we all played hard for coach because he cared so much for us,” said Jermaine Sellers, who played for Boyd at Campbell and is now the head coach at Kell High School. “We did not want to let him down.”
Sellers guided Kell to a state championship in 2023 and is ranked No. 1 this season. He said much of his approach to coaching came from Boyd, who often told him, “No rebounds, no rings.”
But Sellers said the lessons he learned weren’t only about basketball.
“He talked about work ethic, accountability, good character and how to treat people,” Sellers said. “Throughout my coaching career he’s always touched base with me and given me advice, encouraging me.”
Witherspoon, now the basketball coach at Walnut Grove High School in Walton County, recently won his 100th game. One of the first congratulatory texts he received was from Boyd.
“Once I became an adult he always checked in and consistently told me how proud he was of me, to keep going and don’t let all the naysayers distract you from what you’re trying to do,” Witherspoon said. “He was always doing things to boost morale, whether it was coming to his house for a meal or, if someone needed money, he’d always come up with some sort of nick-nack job for you, whether it was raking leaves or walking the dogs, to make sure you were OK.”
Boyd also taught literature – one of his best-known students was Julia Roberts -- and brought the same passion to the classroom. Sellers said, “I looked forward to taking his English class and him teaching ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ Coach Boyd was always very animated and very detailed. He made it exciting to learn English literature.”
Cal Boyd said, “He taught English, which is a very important academic subject, and he did not not that lightly and poured a lot into that, too. He was teaching five English classes a day, coached a major sport for many years and was fighting diabetes. I feel like great coaches are great teachers and vice-versa and David definitely exemplified that.”
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