'That was our calling'
This couple is retiring after 30 years of teaching and coaching
Jan and Todd Davis stand with some of their softball players at St. Stephens High School.
Newton-Conover High School Athletic Director and Principal Todd Davis poses for a photo in front of Newton-Conover High School on Feb. 5, 2025.
St. Stephens head coach Jan Davis encourages her team from third base during a game against Hickory in 2015. Jan and her husband Todd retired in May after 30 years of teaching and coaching.
Todd and Jan Davis took what some would consider an unconventional approach to investing in the next generation.
"We decided not to have kids years ago," Todd said.
Instead of bringing up a handful of their own children, Todd and Jan chose to impact kids' lives through 30 years of teaching and coaching.
"We dedicated our love of children to our players," Todd said. "We still do. We've been to weddings, baby showers and now some of their graduations. That shows how old we are."
"We just felt like that was our calling," Jan said. "It was what we were meant to do."
"God has a plan for all of us," Todd added. "Whenever we made the decision not to have kids, we felt like the Lord wants us to use our faith and our abilities to at least show our Christian love to those kids so that they know they're going to be loved."
This spring, Todd and Jan both retired in May.
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How it started
Todd and Jan Davis met at Gardner-Webb University in the early 1990s.
Jan played softball and volleyball for the school. She got her start in athletics at 8 years old, playing Little League baseball on a boys team.
Todd played tennis, basketball and baseball growing up. He said he didn't play high school baseball, and height got in the way of his basketball aspirations, so he focused on tennis.
"My goal was to be 6 feet tall, but the good Lord stopped me at 5-10," he said.
He made the tennis team at Gardner-Webb and worked his way into the lineup. After graduation, he played some USTA tournaments.
Todd and Jan married in the summer of 1995 after graduation, and then Jan started at Arndt Middle School that fall as a social studies teacher. More than a month into the school year, Todd still didn't have a teaching job.
"I was still lifeguarding back home in Rutherford County," he said.
Todd never had intentions of getting into special education, but when a position at Fred T. Foard opened, he interviewed for it.
"I had never taught that in my life," he said. "I was K-12 health and PE certified. … I went over and interviewed with Alan Biggerstaff, and he hired me, and I got baptized into the world of special ed. I did that for 19 years and I loved it."
The next year, a special education job opened at Arndt and he transferred there and taught with Jan. They moved to St. Stephens together in 2000 and spent the next 14 years there together. Todd later moved to Bandys to take an administrative role.
Coaching as best friends
During their time at Saint, Jan taught social studies and served as the school's head volleyball coach and head softball coach. Todd taught special education and coached girls tennis, JV boys basketball, varsity girls basketball and assisted Jan on the softball coaching staff. Jan said it was never hard for her and her husband to work together.
"People were always like, 'How in the world do you all stand each other?'" Jan said. "But it makes it special when you get to do it with your best friend."
Todd said they had their moments and differences, but in more than 30 years, they have never lost that best friend mentality.
Todd recounted one time in his career when he nearly got ejected from a game. Just like everything else in his adult life, he and Jan did it together.
"Best I can remember, we got into one argument at an athletic event. It was at a softball game at Fred T. Foard," he said.
Todd was coaching softball first base and Jan was coaching third. There was a miscommunication on a fly ball and the runner failed to score.
"I start yelling at Jan across the diamond, 'Why didn't you send the runner?'" he said. "Jan starts yelling at me, 'I did send her. She just didn't listen.'"
The argument continued through the rest of the inning until the umpire got involved.
"He said, 'You all are going to have to calm down because I've never had to throw a husband and wife out of a ballgame together,'" Todd said.
"We got into the dugout and all the girls were huddled at the far end," Jan said with a laugh.
Jan said being able to have moments like that and stay close to each other has been a secret to their success.
"We know how to unleash on each other and once it's unleashed it's done and over with," she said. "I think that has been a piece of our success in staying together and coaching together. … You don't take that stuff personally."
When Todd moved into administration, he had to change schools. He spent six years as an assistant principal at Bandys and then the final six years of his career as the assistant principal and athletic director at Newton-Conover High School.
More than a game
The way Todd and Jan approached it, teaching and coaching aren't two separate jobs, but two ways of making the same impact. For Todd, watching a kid understand something was his favorite part of the job, whether it was in the gym, on the field, on the tennis court or in the classroom.
"We always loved seeing the kids and the intensity when you're talking to them and they're actually trying the things that you're telling them and they're beginning to be successful doing it," Todd said.
He said watching those kinds of "aha!" moments is the most satisfying part of being a coach, even if the players never acknowledge it.
"They just kind of look at you and grin," he said. "A kid is not going to say, 'Thank you,' but you look and you make eye contact and you know what they're thinking."
In the classroom, Jan said being a coach made it easier to reach her students when it came to academics, behavior and life skills. She said she was known for being the hard-nosed coach and did not shed that persona when she stepped into the classroom.
"If they were not up to a C level, then I made them carry an assignment notebook," she said. "They had to write their assignments every day and their teachers and parents had to sign it every day. I felt like I had more impact on making sure that the student athlete got their work done than maybe a parent or a teacher because if you want to play, you've got to get it done."
She said neither of them was willing to entertain special treatment for student-athletes.
"Neither one of us would ever let them write it off," she said. "No. If you got in trouble at school, then you paid your price just like every other kid in the school did, if not more. Once they got to practice, they were probably going to do a lot of running for us as well."
That extra effort wasn't limited to school days.
"There were plenty of weekends that both of us sat down with teachers and sat in the classroom with the student," Jan said. "Being a teacher and a coach, I think you had a stronger connection with your athletes."
Todd said that, after all the extra effort they put in, it's satisfying to see the kids they coached and taught pass down their legacy of high expectations to their own children.
"The feedback we get from our former players now that they have kids," he said. "They say, 'You want to know why I get mad at you when you don't hustle? This is why, because he got mad at me when I didn't hustle."
What comes next
As retirement begins, Todd and Jan still aren't sure what is next. For now, Todd is working on his painting business to help pay the bills.
And Jan? "As for what the future holds, I have no idea," she said. Jan hasn't ruled out getting back involved with education and athletics in some way in the future, but she doesn't have any definite plans. Todd thinks he may do something at Newton-Conover.
"I miss the coaching and being around the coaches and talking ball," he said. "Getting to sleep past five o'clock for the first time in 33 years is nice, though."
But either way, they're going to do it together.
"It's nice knowing we're going to spend the next chapter of our lives together," Todd said. "There's nobody I'd rather start it with than my best friend and the love of my life."
Regardless of what the future holds, they will likely stay in touch with the hundreds of kids and now grandkids they have influenced over the years.
"I can think of one young lady, she is pregnant right now and she'll reach out to us on Facebook, send Todd a text because she played basketball for him and volleyball for me," Jan said. "I have three who are currently teachers in Catawba County and Newton-Conover City schools. …
"To see that they are being successful in their roles, that has meant the world to us. … We feel like God led us down this path and we chose this for a reason and God made it happen for a reason."
Jason Koon is the Sports Editor for the Hickory Record and can be reached at jason.koon@lee.net.
