If we look back at some of the most successful high school coaches in our nation’s history, W. Hickman Ewing Sr. must be among them. As a prep player in Memphis at South Side High, Ewing was an All-Memphis quarterback and baseball player in 1930. He then enrolled at Howard College in Birmingham, where he was an outstanding blocking back in the Dixie Conference. But the legend truly began after college when Ewing hit the coaching ranks. His first job was at Hamilton High in Alabama, starting in 1934. After two seasons, he returned to his high school alma mater to coach football, baseball, and basketball. Other than a stint in the Navy from 1943 to 1945 and a one-season job as assistant football coach at Mississippi State University, Ewing remained at South Side until 1954. His teams won four city football championships, two city basketball titles, and five city baseball championships. His baseball teams also won the West Tennessee Championship in 1950 and 1951, and the latter squad topped off the season with the TSSAA state title. Ewing was also an outstanding football official in the Mid-South Conference and the SEC from 1954 to 1959. In 1967 he returned to coaching at Bishop Nyrne High School in Memphis, where he compiled a 28-8 record, including an undefeated season in 1970, earning him Coach of the Year honors. Hickman Ewing Sr. passed away in 1996, but will always be remembered as a legendary coach in Memphis and in Tennessee sports history.
