Longtime Chester Football Coach To Succeed Pelham At White Knoll

By WORTHY EVANS

Contributing Writer

Columbia - Victor Floyd, a longtime coach at Chester who led the team to a 3A state championship in 2018, has been named the new head football coach at White Knoll.

After 15 years with the Cyclones, Floyd succeeds Nick Pelham, who coached the Timberwolves for five seasons after serving as Dutch Fork’s defensive coordinator and took the head coaching position at the new Lake Wylie High School.

Pelham’s record with White Knoll over those five years was 38-24.

In 2023 Pelham led the Timberwolves to an undefeated season and a Region 4-5A championship going into the 5A state championship game. The Timberwolves, who beat Dutch Fork in region play, fell to the Silver Foxes in the state final.

White Knoll finished 8-6 the next year and played another region foe, Irmo, for the 5A Division 2 lower state championship.



This year the Timberwolves finished 8-4 overall and 3-2 in Region 4-5A in 2025, reaching the second round of the 5A Division 2 playoffs before falling 28-14 to Irmo in the second round.

Floyd, who also coached at C.A. Johnson, Brunswick, Ga., and Dudley, N.C., before going to Chester, said it was hard leaving the Cyclones program that he built and maintained but he’s ready to build on the foundation that Pelham left.

“ The season theme is the next step,” Floyd said. “I look at this program and the great job that coach Pelham did and the position it's in right now, that's the only thing left is the next step.”

Floyd calls the next step “The Wolf Way,” and involves his five pillars: commitment, discipline, sacrifice, toughness, and unity.

“A lot of that comes from confidence. Confidence comes from winning,” he said. “So I think once you get to that point, you just basically battle the challenges of kids being complacent, which that’s the easy part with me.”

In boys basketball, the Timberwolves finished 12-15 overall and 4-6 in the region, good for fourth place and a No.9 seed in the 5A Division 2 playoffs. White Knoll hit the road to play No.8 Myrtle Beach in the first round, beating the Seahawks 52-44.

Junior Peyton Jennings led the way with 26 points and seven rebounds in the game. Tyzai Smith scored 13 points.

That victory put the Timberwolves on the road again to face No.1 seed Goose Creek in the second round. Jennings had 20 points in that game, but the Gators breezed past White Knoll to win 65-39.

White Knoll loses just three seniors from the team. Jennings finished the season with an 18.6 scoring average in addition to averaging 5-6 rebounds, two assists and 2.3 steals per game. Junior Tyzai Smith averaged 9 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.

The girls team has nowhere to go but up. Under first-year head coach Martel Luster, the young Timberwolves went 4-17 overall and 0-10 in the region. White Knoll loses just one senior in a leadership position, Sidney White. The rest of the team was composed of juniors, sophomores and freshmen, who look to improve next season.