Tink Gillam


Monroe Parker "Tink" Gillam was a college football, baseball, and basketball coach. Born in Dadeville, Alabama, Gillam attended Birmingham College, where he played baseball, basketball, and was a halfback on the football team. After graduating in 1919, Gillam was athletic director at Southern Military Academy in Greensboro, Alabama, from 1920–1921 and assistant athletic director at Mississippi College from 1921–1923.
Beginning in 1923, Gillam was an assistant football coach and head basketball coach at Mercer University. He won back-to-back Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association basketball titles as coach at Mercer, earning him the title "the Napoleon of Southern basketball".
Gillam then moved to Clemson College, where he spent two seasons as a football assistant, and was head basketball coach in 1925–26 and 1926–27, and head baseball coach in 1927.
Gillam was inducted into the Birmingham–Southern Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.