Placing a premium on coaching
By Stephen Prudhomme
Staff Writer
Ridgeland - Bob Layman has sold insurance and owned a landscaping company, but those were jobs he only took to pay the bills and support his true passion: coaching.
Layman is the coach of the girls’ softball team at Thomas Heyward Academy. This past season, his first as head coach after serving as assistant for the two previous years, he led the Lady Rebels to the SCISA 3-A state title game against Northwood Academy, which emerged the winner.
“We lost 10 games last season and five of those losses came against Northwood,” Layman notes, adding, with a laugh, that he “really doesn’t like those people.”
Layman grew up in Pittsburgh and played tennis, basketball and football and ran track in high school. Football was his favorite sport. “I liked the physicality of it,” Layman says.
Layman was the starting tight end at Clarion State for one year, noting that he could have been better. He transferred to another college for his remaining three years and didn’t play sports, eventually earning a degree in business.
Following graduation, Layman worked at a sporting goods store and sold insurance. During that same time, he also had the opportunity to coach, returning to his old high school and working with the receivers, defensive backs and punters.
In 1980, Layman followed his parents to Hilton Head and sold insurance and operated a landscaping company before taking the job as head football coach at Hilton Head Prep in 1987. When the program was discontinued several years later, Layman and his family moved to West Virginia, where he coached boys’ high school and AAU basketball and ran a landscaping business.
In 1998, Layman returned to Hilton Head and worked as the district manager for Frito Lay. His daughter, an outstanding fast-pitch softball player who went on to play for Mountain State University in West Virginia, introduced him to the sport. That eventually led to Layman starting the Carolina Bobcats, a fast-pitch travel team that plays along the East Coast.
Three years ago, Layman became the assistant coach of the Thomas Heyward softball team and also coached the girls’ basketball team for two years. This past season, with his daughter Ashlie leading the way as the High School Sports Report 3-A Player of the Year, Layman had one of his most satisfying campaigns and returns everyone for next season.
Coaching never gets old for Layman.
“It’s about teaching kids,” he explains. “I love seeing kids be successful. I work hard to get any girl who wants to play in college a scholarship. That’s my dream, for every kid who wants to play softball to have that opportunity.”
