Western Guilford Sports Community gets hit hard again:Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer from back in ’74 joins the list

That list of people from the Western Guilford Sports Community is getting way too long….

Talking about the list of people from the WG Hornet Community that have died in the past week or two…

Last week it was Coach Chris Causey’s dad, Paul Causey, Clay Britt’s wife and son, and Sammy Jeffers, who was related in some way or another, to every athlete that ever walked through the doors out there on Friendway Drive…

But unfortunatly, we have to add another name to this list of those that have passed away and today, we add on Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer…

‘Doc’ Brewer was the son of James Brewer, the local Guilford College community physician/doctor, along with Norman Fox and ‘Doc’ Brewer graduated from Western Guilford back in 1974….

Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer was the team trainer for the Western Guilford athletic teams and as the athletic trainer, he worked with just about all of the WG Hornet sports teams…

I know those coaches that were there back in those days, appreciated having him around and he knew what he was doing and did it well….He learned his medical/athletic training from the best around, Dr. James Brewer….

Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer passed away on Saturday and he should have been right at age 57-58, or in that neighborhood…

We had been hearing that Gordon Brewer had been suffering from Muscular Dystrophy in recent years and passed away yesterday at Beacon Place…

He had been cared for in recent years by his mom, Martha Brewer and other living members of the Brewer family along with Mrs. Brewer include, brother Jimmy Brewer and sisters Cynthia and Diane Brewer….

Very nice family and they were very loyal to the Western Guilford and Guilford College Quaker Community and they lived on Western Trail of all places just off of Inman Road, in the Piedmont Triad International Airport community….

Nice home with a swimming pool and I used to love the visits to the Brewers house in the summer and that pool was a real nice stopping off point at the end of a hot day, for a kid….

Excellent outdoor paved basketball court too, with available outdoor lighting and that could make for some good games that could go well into the night, if the score was tight….

I remember one of those games one Sunday night, where I went up to get a rebound and I did my boxing out part and Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer went up and came down on my back in his attempt to get that rebound….Not too many people would get rebounds from me back in the day and as bad luck would have it, ‘Doc’ Brewer broke his arm when he came down on my back trying to get that rebound…..

Saw his mom at the doctors office about 20 years later, and his mom still remembered, as she greeted me by saying, ‘There’s the man that broke my son’s arm”….

Yes it was me, ‘guilty as charged’ and for some reason, lots of people ended up with broken bones and injured bodies, when they were in my zone/area back in those days, but that is just the way it went….(No harm intended)

The Brewers were loved and respected, by all that they came in contact with in the Western Guilford/Guilford College/Western Trail community and on their street and in their neighborhood area alone, yuu had the Rudisils, the Tice family, there was the Davis(Tommy) family, the Foxes for a while, the Littles, the Barbers, the Nelsons, the Knights, the other Davises, and way many more failies and all knew James ‘Doc’ Brewer and appreciated his care and that care was carried down to his son, Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer, who looked out for those Western Guilford athletic teams….

Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer taught his trade and sent it on to Douglas Claybough, who probably passed it on to another in a long line of Western Guilford student athletic trainers….But, Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer started it all, because I do not remember any student trainers before Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer began the process/tradition….

Rolls and rolls of tape and pre-wrap and the trainers always carried the scissors around with them, so they could cut that tape loose, at the end of the day/game…..

Good people to have around and the Western Guilford Community has lost another good one in Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer…..With the name he had, as in Brewer and being the good doctor’s son, he had a lot to live up to and he did and now he has died and we are better for it, for having the chance to know, live and do battle for and with the Brewers….

The list keeps on growing, as peple from all over keep going, and just to have been knowing all of them in some way or another, is a GOOD THING……

A good man from a real good family and that was Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer and thanks to him and his family for all of their years of service to the Guilford College/Western Guilford Community……

*****A special thanks to Bill Ahrens/Hornet ’77 for passing this along to us here today…He knows that old WG Community as good as anyone around….*****

4 thoughts on “Western Guilford Sports Community gets hit hard again:Gordon ‘Doc’ Brewer from back in ’74 joins the list

  1. That “74 class was special with Greg French, David Blust, Jerry Midkiff, David Bowman, Terry Billings, Mike Blackwelder and others. Where have the years gone?

  2. I always try to help out and drop in some notes when I can and just saw David Bowman two weeks ago up at Holland Auto Care on Battleground Avenue…That is run/operated by Scott Holland, another Western Guilford-grad and David Bowman was coaching basketball at Forsyth Country Day for a while and then he was down in Florida coaching and now he is back up here….He has a son who is a very good golfer…

    Jerry Midkiff was last check living in Jamestown and working in High Point or Jamestown and he had a son that was a very good baseball player at Wesleyan Academy and the kid played some basketball too….Jerry’w wife Lou, teaches at Wesleyan if I’m not mistaken…

    David Blust was running or working at ski resort at one time up near Boone, N.C. and then he got into the Assisted Living business if my contacts were correct and he ran for public office up in Watauga County, following in the footsteps of his brother John to some degree….

    They nammed the football stadium at Northwest Guilford in honor of Terry Billings dad back in September of 2012 and Terry plus his brother Randy were at Northwest that night….

    Mike Blackwelder and his brother Gene were very good Tennis players at one time and I do believe one of them became a tennis pro……

    Greg French was an excellent golfer and could play some basketball and baseball too and he may have done something with his golf career….His brother Jeff French was one heck of a drummer in his early days….

    That is some of the word on those men from this end and ‘Doc’ Brewer was good friends with all of them…

    Also from my old neighborhood out of that class you had Terry McElfresh, Mike Collins and Ken Barber…Good crew there too…

    Others were old Gary Bowers, Herbert Pressley, Don Tatum(now deceased), Johnny Roberts, who owns and operates the ‘Your House Restaurant’ on Battleground Avenue, Cliff Wakefield, Johnny Barnes, Myron Chandler(Lightning), and others and if any more come to mind, will add here and others can add a few too, if you like…Some of those women may have been Susan Smith, Jane Gorham, Mandy McGuire and others….

    Lots of names still out there from the old Hornet’s Nest…..

    *****You had three centers on that boys basketball team that could give you steady minutes in Blackwelder, Wakefield and Johnny Roberts too and pretty sure all three play for Coach Jones along with Blust, Bowman, Meredith(all guards) and French who was like a power forward.Jerry Midkiff and Billngs may have been small forwards, but pretty sure that they played too…*****

  3. There was another guy that hung out with that ’74 crew including Doc and I think his name might have been Scott Osborne and now that you think more of it, there was David Meredith too….

  4. Doc was the trainer my junior and senior years at Western. I always appreciated how much he did for our basketball teams. He taped my ankles every day and helped me rehab them when I sprained them. He was a great trainer and a great person. Throughout my coaching career I often thought of Doc and how lucky Western was to have such a good trainer back in the days when most schools had none. A great guy who made a difference.

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