TITUSVILLE — Yellow newspaper clippings, faded memories and dark blue banners have brightened up the milky-colored hallway inside the Wise Building on the sprawling Titusville High campus. Dale Mays, a former assistant coach for the Terriers' back-to-back state football championships in 1982 and '83, and a former head golf coach, steps out of his math room to bask in the school's historical athletic achievements.
"Remember when . . .," he says, looking at photos and reading headlines.
It's called the Champion's Walk, complete with banners of Titusville High's 21 individual state champions, nine team champs and seven relay winners, as well as framed jerseys from the school's most notable athletes, including 1988 Olympic swimming bronze medalist Mitzi Kremer. There also are 22 banners hanging in the Dog House, the school's 57-year-old gym.
Dozens of hours, sweat and about $5,000 from his pocket are how Mays decided to repay the school before he retires.
"It's not about the money; it's a way of saying thank you to all the people who I've closely worked with, and to all the athletes who've come through here," said Mays, once a kid with a blond, surfer-style haircut who played on the Terriers' football team. "It's not about living in the past but showing today's and tomorrow's students that if you want something badly enough. . . . These kids on the walls all had their share of failures, but then they went on to achieve something special, which not many do."
The 82-year-old school, one of Florida's oldest, has had its share of standout athletes, especially at one time.
"Every school has its Camelot, when the athletes were at their best, the fan support at its greatest, when the ball bounced their way," Mays said. "Ours was from 1977 to 1984. Right now, Cocoa is at its Camelot."
Mays, a former Florida Gator, came up with the idea, patterned after the Gator Walk in Gainesville.
The Terriers' 100-foot-long hallway evokes memories of sprinters Janet McCrary and Martha Chapman exchanging batons on the final curve to win a state track title as the night closed in Winter Park, and of Martha Ryans blasting a volleyball spike in a state final against mighty Cardinal Gibbons.
