Alumni
Remember the Titans? We do! Along with our Championship team from 1971, we have many notable alumni.
If you know of alumni who deserve mentioning on this page, let us know at news@acps.k12.va.us.
ACPS Athletic Hall of Fame Inductees
Our Stars
Dr. Gregory C. Hutchings, Jr., Superintendent of Schools
In December 2017, the Alexandria City School Board selected Dr. Gregory C. Hutchings, Jr., a graduate of T.C. Williams High School, as Superintendent of Schools for Alexandria City Public Schools. Hutchings grew up in the West End and came up through the ranks of ACPS. He attended Patrick Henry Elementary School, William Ramsay Elementary School, Mount Vernon Community School, James K. Polk Elementary School, and Francis C. Hammond Middle School before graduating from T.C. Williams High School in 1995. As a student, he was a member of the high school track and field team, the Future Business Leaders of America club, Prom King, and senior class first vice president.
Tierra Ruffin-Pratt
The most decorated basketball player in T.C. Williams history, Tierra was named First Team All-America, the ninth-ranked high school prospect in the nation, two-time Virginia Gatorade Player of the Year, four-time All-Met (including two-time Player of the Year) and First Team All-State for two years. She went on to star at the University of North Carolina, where she was First Team All-ACC and All-Region 2. Tierra began her professional career in the WNBA with the Washington Mystics in 2013, helping them reach the WNBA Finals for the first time in franchise history in 2018. Off the court, Tierra has been tireless in her efforts to promote athletics and good citizenship among youth in the Washington Metro area.
Clark Mercer
Clark Mercer was the Chief of Staff to Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. A graduate of T.C. Williams High School Class of 1998 and later summa cum laude Yale graduate, he was also the first soccer superstar to come out of Alexandria City Public Schools. As a goalkeeper and captain of the T.C. Williams soccer team, he was named District and Regional Player of the Year. He also played football for both T.C. Williams and Yale, and was First Team All-State his senior year at T.C. Mercer also competed in indoor track and served as team captain in his junior and senior years. He has since volunteered as youth soccer coach in Alexandria including a stint as an assistant coach for the varsity squad at T.C. Williams High School.
Ardelia Hunter
Ardelia Hunter was a pioneer in women’s high school athletics and was a star on the Parker-Gray women’s basketball team. After college she returned to Alexandria, where she served the City’s youth for 34 years, beginning as an ACPS elementary school teacher and rising to become an assistant principal and then principal. She earned a master’s degree in elementary education from Virginia State College along the way. While Hunter is honored for her athletic skills at Parker-Gray—a segregated school—she is also esteemed for overcoming barriers and ultimately serving as the principal of two integrated schools.
Bill Butcher
The Alexandria Chamber of Commerce selected Bill Butcher, founder of Port City Brewing Company, as the 2018 Business Leader of the Year. Butcher is a fourth-generation Alexandrian and proud alum of T.C. Williams and Alexandria City Public Schools. After graduating from James Madison University, he spent many years working with Robert Mondavi Wine Company building world-class fine wine brands in the Mid-Atlantic market. As a longtime craft beer aficionado, Bill watched the craft beer business evolve and become more like the fine wine business. In 2011, he started the Port City Brewing Company in Alexandria. Port City Brewing Company has garnered national and international acclaim.
Hon. William D. Euille
William D. Euille, was the first African-American mayor of Alexandria. A 1968 graduate of T.C. Williams high School, he served ten years on the Alexandria City School Board from 1974 to 1984 before being elected to City Council in 1994. He was elected the City's first African-American mayor in May 2003 and was re-elected mayor in May, 2006, 2009 and in November 2012. He serves on the board of directors for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority; the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA). He is past chairman of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) and past president of the Virginia Transit Authority (VTA). Additionally, he is chairman of the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments (COG), serves on the Governor's Council on Virginia Future, and president of the Virginia Municipal League (VML).
Sheriff Dana Lawhorne
Sheriff Dana Lawhorne is a graduate of T.C. Williams High School as well as a retired police officer who served for 27 years in the Alexandria Police Department’s Uniformed Patrol and Criminal Investigations Divisions. Sheriff Lawhorne has been a regular presence in our schools and remains deeply committed to supporting Alexandria’s schools.
The three sons of President Gerald R. Ford
President Gerald R. Ford’s three sons, Stephen, Jack and Michael, all graduated from T.C. Williams High school. During the Fords’ 25 years living in Alexandria, they were active in community affairs and the children attended Alexandria City Public Schools. According to Mayor Euille, who attended T. C. Williams High School with the two oldest Ford sons, Mr. Ford visited the schools as a parent, a speaker to government classes, and an athletic booster for his sports-minded children.
Trae Lamond
Accidental restaurateur Trae Lamond got his start in the business when he got a job in a restaurant to earn enough money to move out of his parent’s house after college. While he had every intention of writing a resume and starting a career after graduating from James Madison University, it turned out that the restaurant business was a good fit. Although he graduated with a major in history and a minor in art, the jobs he worked in dining halls and restaurants all through college were his real education. Within a year of starting out as a server at Chadwicks Restaurant in 2004, he was bartending and managing. When the opportunity came up to buy the restaurant a decade later, he took it. He finds his work challenging but fun and loves that he is able to be creative, work with people and give back to the community. Lamond attended Maury Elementary School, Lyles-Crouch, and George Washington Middle School before graduating from T.C. in 1999. While at T.C., Lamond rowed his freshman year and was a member of the Freshman Eight that won states. He was vice president of the Key Club and took art classes every year at T.C. Dr. Lewis was his all-time favorite teacher. Lamond played Titan Expo twice, with the Twig & Berries and the Unusual Suspect Band and was voted "funniest" his senior year.
Dermot Mulroney
Dermot Mulroney is known for his roles in the films Young Guns (1988), Samantha (1991), Where the Day Takes You (1992), My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), the TV Movie The Last Outlaw (1993), About Schmidt (2002), and August: Osage County (2013). He attended Matthew Maury Elementary School where he played the cello in All City Orchestra before graduating from T.C. Williams.
Charles Esten Puskar III
Charles (Chip) Esten is an actor/singer best known for his comedy improv and role as country singer Deacon Clayborne on ABC's Nashville. Esten is a 1983 graduate of Alexandria's T.C. Williams High School, where he played football for the Titans.
Remember the Titans
Herman Boone and Bill Yoast
Although not T.C. alum Herman Boone and Bill Yoast, coaches of the 1971 State Championship football team, memorialized in the Disney movie Remember the Titans have been honored by the Athletic Hall of Fame and regularly turn out for ACPS events. Coach Boone took the position at T.C. Williams when he was told that the town of Williamston in North Carolina was not ready for a black head coach. He was appointed as T.C. Williams’ head coach when the City of Alexandria integrated its high schools. Working alongside Yoast, a legendary coach at the all-white Francis C. Hammond High School with several years seniority and a steadfast City following, the two coaches put aside personal pride and pulled together to solidify a diverse coaching staff and team into the most successful team in the state in 1971. In December 1971, President Richard Nixon was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “The Titans of Alexandria saved the City of Alexandria.” Glenn Furman was assistant coach at the time and has also been honored by the T.C. Athletic Hall of Fame.
Petey Jones
Until 2018, Petey Jones, was a security monitor at T.C. Williams High School as well as a player in the 1971 football team. He grew up playing football together with Darryl "Blue" Stanton at George Washington Middle School and continued that at T.C. "We had a nice relationship that grew stronger when we went to T.C. After 'Remember the Titans,' We did a lot of speaking engagements together," said Jones.
Read more and see a video of Petey Jones talk about his experiences at T.C. Williams.
Frankie Glascoe
T.C. Athletic Hall of Fame inductees include Frankie Glascoe, Captain of the 1971 State Championship football team, memorialized in the Disney movie Remember the Titans. Glascoe still holds the T.C. Williams High School record in the triple jump that he set 44 years ago, when he was ranked third in the nation in the triple jump and fourth in the long jump. He currently serves on the Board of the 1971 Titans Foundation that provides financial assistance to students at T.C. Williams who may not otherwise be able to afford college.
Darryl “Blue” Stanton
T.C. Williams Titans proudly remembered former 1971 teammate Darryl "Blue" Stanton, who was killed in a car crash in North Carolina in March 2017. Stanton was a member of the 1971 State Championship football team memorialized in the movie, "Remember the Titans." Blue was portrayed by actor Earl C. Poitier in the movie. Stanton graduated from T.C. in 1973.
Jerry Harris
Jerry Harris, another player in the championship team of 1971, works in the Budget Office at ACPS Central Office as a Payroll Specialist. He initially played against Stanton and Jones when they were at G.W. and T.C., but joined the same side once the schools were merged. Harris recalled a memory of Blue and Coach Boone during a talk on the field. Boone was standing face-to-face in very close proximity to Stanton, as he was known to do when talking with the players. Each time Stanton, who was wearing his large and bulky football helmet, was addressed by Coach Boone, he nodded his head up-and-down or side-to-side, bumping Boone in the nose. Stanton, feeling rather amused with himself, came away laughing that he had gotten Coach.
Athletic Stars
In 2014, Alexandria City Public Schools launched its Athletic Hall of Fame. Many of our acclaimed athletes are already inducted into the Hall of Fame. Some like the Lyles Brothers, T.C. graduates of 2017, are still too young!
Jeremiah Clarke
Jeremiah Clarke, T.C. Williams High School Class of ’14, is a All-State and All Patriot District Football player and Track athlete, who is currently playing football and is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jeremiah is due to graduate from UNC this fall, with a dual degree in Sports Administration and Communications. Below is the link to Jeremiah's Bio at UNC.
Noah Lyles
Noah Lyles (Class of 2017) is a professional track and field sprinter. He holds personal bests of 9.88 seconds for the 100-meter dash and 19.65 seconds for the 200-meter dash. Lyles is the 300m indoor world record holder with a time of 31.87 from the 2017 US Indoor Champs. He won the gold medal in 200 m during the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing. He won gold medals in 100 m and 4 × 100-meter relay during the 2016 IAAF World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland. We are sure we will see him in the Athletic Hal of Fame as well as the Olympics in the future – watch this spot!
Discover more.
Walter Oreal Griffin Sr.
Walter Oreal Griffin Sr., is the only person to be named Washington Post All Metropolitan Basketball Player from the historically all-black Parker-Gray High School. His Parker-Gray High School basketball team won 38 consecutive games and three consecutive state titles between 1955 and 1957 and finished third in the nation in 1957. Oreal Griffin Sr. was one of the first black players from a segregated school in the United States to receive a scholarship to a major four-year university for basketball.
Jimmy Lewis
Jimmy Lewis was the first African-American Men’s Basketball Coach at Duke University in 1971, first head coach of the Washington Mystics in the Women’s National Basketball Association and the coach with the highest number of wins for either men’s or women’s basketball at George Mason University. At the national level, Lewis was a member of the coaching staff for four U.S. National Basketball teams that between them won three gold medals and one silver medal.
Tony Hunt
Tony Hunt finished his Penn State career with the second highest number of career rushing yards of any Penn State running back and went on to become only the fifth Penn State player ever to rush for 1,000-yards two years in a row and to rush for more than 3,000 career yards. He was named the Most Valuable Player of the 2007 Senior Bowl, after leading all running backs in total yards, named the 2007 Outback Bowl Most Valuable Player in 2007 and was drafted in the third round by the Philadelphia Eagles.
Michael E. Heisley, GWHS 1955
Mike, a member of the George Washington High School Class of 1955, grew up on the gritty edge of Del Ray near the railroad tracks and through working and a “need” scholarship, earned a business degree from Georgetown University. Using his mathematical skills learned at GW and his financial management skills from Georgetown, he achieved an extraordinary career in business by purchasing over 40 struggling industrial companies, restructuring their finances, installing new management, and turning them around into successful enterprises. Later, he demonstrated his “turnaround artistry” by moving to the National Basketball Association in 2000 to purchase the moribund Vancouver Grizzlies franchise for $110 million, moving them to Memphis, convincing NBA legend Jerry West to join his management team, and celebrating with play-off wins within 3 years! In 2012, as he began to wind down his business career, he sold his beloved Grizzlies for $375 million!
This is the same Mike Heisley whose family foundation donated $ 175,000 of the $ 250,000 required to build Alexandria’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial and fund the centerpiece statue of Medal of Honor recipient Captain Rocky Versace, his former St. Rita’s CYO basketball teammate.
The Alexandria Public Schools should trumpet the historical and remarkable record of their only student to achieve such extraordinary success that he became Alexandria’s first and, to date, only owner of one of the rare 30 franchises in the National Basketball Association! Gerald B. File, GWHS 1957
Dawn Ingram
Dawn Ingram was a star of the girls’ basketball team at T.C. Williams and Temple University. She was named to the Second Team All Big 5 Conference, Defensive Player of the Year and Most Valuable Player. Ingram then went on to pursue her Doctorate Degree in Physical Therapy.
John Kemper
John Kemper, a basketball player from the George Washington High School Class of 1964, is known as one of the greatest all around athletes to come out of the City of Alexandria. Kemper, who went on to have a distinguished career in engineering and construction, was awarded nine varsity letters in football, basketball and baseball. He was named All Met in football in 1963, Alexandria’s Outstanding High School Athlete in 1963 and 1964 and All Northern Region in basketball in 1963. In 1999, he was honored as one of Alexandria’s 100 all-time greatest athletes and in 2003 he was given the Alexandria Sportsman’s Club Gene Bode Memorial Hall of Fame Award.
Michael Casey
Michael Casey, T.C. Williams High School Class of 1971, is the second basketball player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year. He played professionally in Venezuela and then went on to earn his Masters and Doctoral degrees while serving as a career educator both in the District of Columbia and Alexandria. One of the premier post players in T.C. Williams history, Casey was selected First Team All-Tournament in the district and regional tournaments and led T.C. Williams High School to the regional finals. He went on to play with the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, the first historically black college to be ranked in the Associated Press Top 20 Poll.
Ratcliff Thomas
Ratcliff Thomas, T.C. Williams High School Class of ’92, was drafted to play for the Carolina Panthers in 1997 and then went on to enjoy a productive career with the Indianapolis Colts where he was a defensive and special teams standout. In 1999, he was named to the Sports Illustrated All Pro team while with the Colts. Following his professional career, Thomas returned to Alexandria where he has served has a mentor to the City’s youth, including time as an assistant coach for the Titans football squad.
Kelly Mercer
Kelly Mercer, T.C. Williams High School Class of 1992, is one of the most outstanding track athletes ever to compete for T.C. Williams High School. She earned an unprecedented five state titles during her junior and senior years, winning individual titles indoors in the 1,000 meters in 1991 and 1992 and running a leg of the championship 800 meter relay for the 1991 team that earned the school’s first team title. Mercer, who went on to compete for Georgetown University where she graduated second in her class, capped her high school career finishing second in the nation in the 1-mile run at the Golden West Invitational. She is now an oncologist at the University of Virginia Hospital, while volunteering as an elementary school sports coach.
Dawn Ingram
Dawn Ingram (Class of ’95) attended Temple University, where she won many accolades, including being named to Second Team All Big 5 Conference and named defensive player of the year and Most Valuable Player. Ingram then went on to pursue her Doctorate Degree in Physical Therapy at Marymount University where she won the student of the year clinical excellence award. Ingram then returned to Alexandria to become a physical therapist, where she has been a mentor to those aspiring to pursue athletics on the next level.
Michael Horton
Michael Horton is a basketball player who scored over 1,600 points during his career on the T.C. Williams team and graduated as the school’s all-time leading scorer. He was honored as a first team all-state selection his senior year, was named to the All-Northern Region Team twice, and was selected to three all-district teams. Horton began his college career at Alleghany Community College, where he was the top-rated point guard in the U.S. He went on to play basketball for the University of Cincinnati, the preseason top-ranked collegiate team in the nation. After college, he returned to Alexandria and pursued a career with ACPS.
Ron Lambert
Ron Lambert was an all-around athlete who lettered in four sports in his senior year. Lambert played varsity basketball for three seasons and was named first-team all state his senior year. He was also captain of the football team, where he was an all-district selection as a receiver and defensive end and played basketball, baseball and track. Lambert attended Memphis State University on a football scholarship and also played on the Memphis State basketball team. He then transferred to Rio Grande University, where he was a three-time, all-conference selectee in basketball and was named to the All-America Team in 1974. He was inducted into the Rio Grande University Hall of Fame in 1992.
Daymond Jackson
Daymond Jackson was a first team all-met and first team all-state selection in 1995 and graduated as the second leading scorer in T.C. Williams’ basketball history. As a senior he averaged 28.5 points per game and was selected as the Basketball Player of the Year by the Alexandria Sportsman’s Club. Jackson also excelled in track, placing third in the region in 1995 for the high jump. Upon graduating from T.C. Williams, he went on to a stellar four-year collegiate career playing basketball for John Thompson’s Georgetown Hoyas.
Dwight Stephens
Dwight Stephens was one of a long line of great T.C. Williams’ distance runners. He completely dominated Virginia high school distance running his senior year. In an unprecedented sweep, he won the 1979 Northern Region and Virginia cross-country titles, the 1980 state indoor title at 3200 meters, and the 1980 state outdoor title at 3200 meters. In the Northern Region cross-country championship, he ran the fourth fastest time in the history of the famous Burke Lake course and set a record in the two-mile run at the state outdoor track and field championships that has stood for 37 years. After T.C. Williams, Stephens went on to a successful collegiate career at Pennsylvania State University.
Bob Stumpf
Bob Stumpf was a three-year varsity oarsman and a two-way starter and co-captain of the 1969 Northern Virginia champion football team. During his sophomore and senior years, he was in boats that won the prestigious Stotesbury Cup. As captain of the crew team in his senior year he also won the U.S. National Championship. Bob went on to row at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he earned a gold medal at the Eastern Sprints and a bronze medal at the 1971 National Collegiate Championships. Following graduation, Bob launched a 23-year career as a naval aviator. He flew 22 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism. He later commanded the Navy’s legendary Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron.