Cliff Tankersley
Tankersley, Cliff: Irwin County High School
Tankersley was inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame in 2025.
Cliff Tankersley wanted the entire Irwin County community to know that they played just as much a part in his baseball success as the legendary coach did.
Tankersley, the legendary Irwin County High School baseball coach, was one of five inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame as a part of the class of 2025.
He said that a valuable asset for Irwin’s baseball history and success can be attributed to the community support, financial support and the numerous individuals, moms, and dads who volunteered to help coach and teach kids during the formative years in church, T-ball, Little League and middle school.
“I do feel very honored and blessed to be going into the Hall of Fame”, he said. “It’s a humbling and prestigious honor because there are many great coaches in there.”
Tankersley, a native of Irwin County, spent his first three years teaching and coaching at Montgomery County before returning home to coach the Indian baseball program for 15 years. He compiled an overall record of 304-118 and guided Irwin County to a state baseball title in 1997.
From 1993-1998, Tankersley’s teams made it to the state semifinals or better every year, finishing with a state title, three state runner-up finishes and five region titles.
“I would like to acknowledge an important key to my success,” he said. “I was fortunate to have two Godly Christian parents, Cleon and Carolyn Tankersley who taught me and my sister, Jane, to put Christ first in everything we did. That was the foundation. That put me on the right track. Trusting Christ is huge. Next, the Lord blessed me and my strong, supportive wife, Nanci, with the opportunity to return to Irwin County to teach and coach in a community that loves kids and supports them 100 percent.”
Tankersley learned the value of setting goals and striving to achieve them as a player in 1973. He said that his sophomore year his coach -L.M. Wesson - asked each player to list five goals on the bill of their baseball cap.
“I remember the next day when Coach asked us to reveal our goals, nobody had put down win a state championship. “ he said. “He changed our way of thinking and work ethics.”
Coach Wesson led Irwin to the school’s first state championship in 1973. The next season, Irwin lost the state championship to Harlem.
“My senior year in 1975, we beat Harlem for the school’s second state championship,” Tankersley said. “Setting goals and working hard to accomplish them was now proven and engrained in my head.”
When Tankersley became a head coach he wrote two goals on his hat bill each season. One was Proverbs 3:5-6 which reads, “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.”
Tankersley said he later added B+ on his ball cap after adopting it from an admired school administrator, Mr. Larry Cowart.
“Mr. Cowart had a large B+ on his office door, and one day I asked him what that B+ was about,” Tankersley said. “He said, ‘Coach, that is a reminder for me to be positive.’ I liked that and added it to my cap bill and tried to instill that in our kids.”
Tankersley was known for producing fundamentally sound teams who could hit, pitch, and play defense. One of Tankersley’s biggest rivals was Clinch County, coached by GDC Hall of Famer, Cecil Barber. The winner during the regular season between the two teams usually won the region and, in many cases, went on to win the state championship in Class A. Only the region champion in those days made the state playoffs.
Barber said Tankersley’s teams were always tough to beat.
“Irwin County was just as good as we were”, Barber said. “Cliff Tankersley always put some good teams on the field. They always did the little things the right way.”
He stepped away as the head baseball coach in 1998, but he continued to be an assistant from 2002-2005. He was named the Irwin County Teacher of the Year in 2010 before officially retiring in 2012. He still makes his way to the field to watch his son, Drew, the current head coach, continue the elder Tankersley’s legacy.
“I’ve enjoyed sitting on the other side of the fence and watching Drew coach”, Tankersley said. “We’ve got some of the same signals that I used, so it’s kind of fun to know what’s going to happen before everyone else does.”
“Baseball has taught me a lot of lessons about life”, he said. “You should treat people the way you want to be treated, grow through adversity, and do the little things the right way.”