Holloman’s time as South Pointe coach is over, but his impact on Rock Hill will live on
Former South Pointe athletic director Adam Hare remembers a moment in late 2019, just a few weeks after he’d hired DeVonte Holloman as the school’s new head football coach.
He and Holloman were in the laundry room, folding Stallion uniforms, making small talk. Hare, a Clemson fan, at some point remembers going on a ramble about Clemson coach Dabo Swinney: The team would always wear white pants until near the end of the season, when they enter their “championship phase,” Hare remembers saying. Then they wear different combinations with purple or orange pants or you name it.
Hare then stopped himself and chuckled, realizing he was talking to a four-year USC Gamecock football player.
“I said, ‘You’re probably going to get tired of me talking about Clemson,’” Hare recounted to The Herald on Tuesday, just a few hours after the news broke that Holloman was leaving South Pointe for another job opportunity.
“And Holloman says, ‘Nah man, Clemson doesn’t bother me. I’m undefeated against them.’”
Without much fuss or flash — and despite stepping into one of the most sought-after jobs in the state of South Carolina, in a town that takes intense pride in living up to its “Football City USA” nickname — Holloman left an impact on South Pointe High School and the Rock Hill community that won’t soon fade.
Part of the impact could be measured on the field. In three seasons, his program won 29 games and lost only five. It earned three consecutive region championships. It won a state championship this past December, too, punctuating its season with a 41-7 win over Beaufort that was later recognized by Rock Hill’s city council.
But most of his impact can be measured elsewhere — in college scholarship opportunities, in helping his players through grief, in relating to his team because of his youth (he’s 30) and background, in reminding his Stallion football program that it’s “Still South Pointe” in prestige and power.
He seemed to imbue South Pointe with a quiet, don’t-sweat-it confidence. His credentials gave him the freedom to do that: Everyone knew he was a state champion at South Pointe in 2008, a South Carolina defensive back/linebacker for four years and a sixth-round NFL draft pick in 2013.
“When he came here, South Pointe was going through a transition in losing Strait Herron,” said Perry Sutton, a longtime youth football coach in Rock Hill. “And with them picking DeVonte, I think he was the best pick that they could’ve gotten to stabilize the program.”
Sutton and Holloman regularly worked together. Holloman was a “community guy,” Sutton said, visiting the town’s youth leagues and making sure he used all his contacts to get his players college opportunities. When Sutton asked Holloman if he could help speak on a mental health panel in May, Holloman obliged and shared some of his own personal stories and struggles.
Sutton also called many of South Pointe’s games this season on WRHI, York County’s local radio station.
“He really didn’t have a huge team this year,” Sutton said on Tuesday. “He was just able to get them to buy into the program, with brotherly love, and they knew one another and they played for each other.”
He added: “I think DeVonte is a great person, and I’m proud of him. I know he’s going to be successful in whatever he does.”
Reports say Holloman’s next stop is in a support-staff role under coach Shane Beamer at USC, his alma mater.
Reactions to the news on social media and among community members ran the gamut on Tuesday, from surprised to nostalgic to excited.
Nakia McCloud — a Stallion football assistant who coached Holloman when he was a player and refers to Holloman as “the little nephew I never had” — felt all those emotions all at once, he said. Memories flooded. He remembered taking Holloman on the occasional college visit to South Carolina when he was 18. He remembered receiving a few phone calls from an inconsolable 25-year-old Holloman, when a neck injury foiled his NFL dreams in only his second year in the league.
He remembered all the work he put in as a 28-, 29- and 30-year-old coach at South Pointe.
And McCloud remembered hearing of the news Tuesday.
“It’s bittersweet to him,” McCloud said of Holloman. The former head coach loved his players and was worried how they were going to take the news.
But McCloud was happy that Holloman was doing what he was meant to do.
“I was excited for him that he was happy,” McCloud said. “One thing about him, he gave me two phone calls when he got hurt. And to hear how hurt he was, when the doctor told him that his career had to be over, he told me, ‘Coach, I don’t know what I’m going to do next.’ I just said, ‘God got you. He’ll lead you in the right direction.’ And you know, he started coaching, and knowing all that he’d been through, I’m just so happy for him.”
Happy for all Holloman did in his three years as coach in Rock Hill.
Happy, too, perhaps, for the impact Holloman will leave behind.
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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