Charles Flowers: Shaw High School

Flowers was inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame in 2007.

Charles Flowers was the architect of Shaw High School’s dominance in baseball and football in Muscogee County. The Troup County native reached the pinnacle with both programs in the early 2000s.

After guiding the football program to the school’s only state championship in 2000, Flowers helped lead the baseball program to the state title in 2001, becoming one of the few coaches in state history to lead the football and baseball programs to titles in the same academic year.

Flowers was inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame in 2007.

He coached at Shaw from 1987 to 2006 before he became the first county-wide athletic director in Muscogee County. He later had football coaching stints at Dougherty and Troup, but he retired from coaching baseball after the 2006 season.

“To win the baseball and football state championship in the same year really stands out to me,” Flowers told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. “We had tremendous young men and very dedicated coaches. Those coaches put the time in and worked extremely hard. They were on top of things. The faculty and administration made it truly a family atmosphere. To culminate that in the spring by beating your crosstown rival in Columbus High School was phenomenal.”

Flowers was as much about developing young talent in elementary and middle school as he was about high school athletes. His baseball and football camps were always well-attended, and he was respected around Columbus.

“Winning games is great, but Charles Flowers has done a lot more than win games,” the late Herbert Greene, a former Columbus State University athletic director, said. “Through his dedication, Coach Flowers has influenced a tremendous amount of young men and women and has worked not only to produce quality athletes but quality citizens.”

Some information in this article was used from the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.