When Texas Tech sophomore J’Koby Williams calls his old junior high coach, Andy Evans, in Beckville, their conversations rarely start with football stats. They talk about life, about character, and about treating people right. And while the 60-year-old coach loves to tell Williams how proud he is, he will be the first to tell you that J’Koby was more than his student. Williams and a handful of other Beckville students quite literally saved his life.​

The darkness that nearly swallowed Evans whole arrived on Feb. 21, 2015, when his 18-year-old son Scott died in a one-car accident. Scott had lost control of his Honda Accord, hit a tree, and the car caught fire. Evans, a legendary East Texas coach whose teams had won two state championships, somehow zombied through a miserable 0-10 season that fall. 

When it ended, he told school officials they needed to hire someone else. “I had a sofa in my office, and I would go to work, and lay on that sofa. I’d cry all day long until time for practice. And then when I got through with practice, I’d go in and lay on that sofa and cry until time to go home. And then I’d go home and go straight to bed, because the only place I ever got any peace was when I was asleep.”

Evans thought his coaching career was over, that he had nothing left to give. But when neighboring Beckville needed help with the junior-high program in 2017, he reluctantly agreed to come over. Just for one year, he told them. His youngest son, Jaxon, was attending school there, and Beckville had been so good to the boy, Evans figured he owed them. One year turned into seven, and the reason was simple: The kids wouldn’t let him give up. And especially not young J’Koby.

Williams and Evans became inseparable, talking life at the local taco shop, with the coach serving as a father figure to the young athlete.

“Coach Evans has been on my side ever since sixth grade,” Williams said. “He kind of took me under his wing, taught me a lot of stuff: How to be a man, how to be respectful to people. Taught me how to be a better player and really everything I know.”

But what Williams might not fully understand is how much he gave back. “There was not a day over the seven-year period that J’Koby didn’t find me before he left the school or when we were on the field or after practice. He’d come over, hug me and say, ‘Coach, I love you,'” Evans said. “That kid had a lot to do with saving my life, and that’s why he’s so special to me.” 

Now, as Williams dazzles 60,000 fans at Jones AT&T Stadium, the two still talk regularly. When their phone conversations end these days, Williams never fails to tell the coach, “I love ya, Paw-Paw.”

It’s a long way from that sofa where Evans used to cry on. And now, watching Williams hurdle defenders, Evans gets to see the fruits of that mutual rescue. Two people who had each other’s back when it mattered most.​

How ‘The Uncommon Man’ followed Williams to Lubbock

Years ago, when Evans was still at Tatum and watched too many kids grow up without father figures, he got philosophical with his dad and the other coaches. “I said, ‘You know, it says in the Bible that it’s going to get like this, that people are going to make things right in their own mind and we’re going to have all these struggles. … It makes me wonder why we try so hard,'” Evans recalled. 

His father Joe, who coached for 64 years until age 85, fired back with a response that changed everything: “It makes me wonder why we’re not trying harder.” That conversation sparked “The Uncommon Man,” a program where they brought men from the community together to watch over kids and encourage them to become great men. In 2014, Evans won the Coaching Beyond the Game Award for the initiative. And during his acceptance speech, he got a phone call that would forge a lasting friendship.​

“When I spoke on it, Joey called me and said, ‘I want to do that,'” Evans said. Joey McGuire installed The Uncommon Man at Cedar Hill. And the two coaches stayed in touch about strategies for motivating young men to reach their potential. When McGuire landed the Texas Tech job, one of his first calls was to Evans: “The Uncommon Man is going to Lubbock.” True to his word, McGuire built the program into the fabric of the Red Raiders’ culture.