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Bill Spiers
The Cameron native, from a multi-sport
star athlete at Wade Hampton Academy
where he quarterbacked his team to a two SCISA state football championships, accepted a baseball scholarship to Clemson, where
his father Bud and brother Mike played. Bill wound up making first-team All American by The Sporting News as well as first-team
All-ACC and All-ACC Academic. He holds the Clemson single-season record for triples with 11.
After hitting .345 his first two seasons, he answered football coach Danny Ford’s ad in the student newspaper
for a punter and averaged 39.2 yards, 12th-best in school history. The Milwaukee Brewers made the slick-fielding
infielder their first-round draft pick and Spiers went on to a 12-year Major League Baseball career with a .271 batting average,
37 home runs and 388 RBI. In his latter years, he joined the Houston Astros, and enjoyed his best season with a .320 average,
27 doubles and 48 RBI while playing seven different positions. The Charleston Post-Courier named Spiers No. 57 on its list
of South Carolina’s 100 Greatest Athletes of the Century.
When he retired in 2001, Spiers declined an offer to become a coach with the Astros and lives in his hometown with wife Laura
and coaches his two children in youth sports.
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