SPOTLIGHT: Twin Head Coaches Times Two

Nov. 21, 2011

By Kim Ling and Nathan Booth
Ole Miss Athletics Media Relations

Twins are rare. How about this for rare? Ole Miss has two head coaches who are twins−men's golf head coach Ernest Ross and men's tennis head coach Billy Chadwick. Both are identical twins.

The `Not Always So Friendly' Sibling Rivalry

Ernest Ross and his twin brother, Ralph, had a rivalry on the golf course that Ernest described as being, "as intense as anything you can imagine."

Growing up in the small town of Grenada, Miss., the Ross brothers were not the stereotypical twins who did everything together and acted the same way.

"My mother always tried to raise us as individuals." said Ernest. "She never dressed us alike or anything. And we hung out with our own group of friends."

Nevertheless, the two were inevitably linked together in many regards. Not only did the Ross twins have to share a bedroom and a car growing up, they also had to share the same golf course.

Ralph played golf with Ernest from childhood through their collegiate careers at Ole Miss in the 1970's. Though they played on the same teams, the two developed a fierce rivalry on the links--one in which neither could consistently gain advantage over the other.

"It was tough because you are competing with someone with the same size and physical ability as you, and sometimes it just boiled down to who wanted it more," said Ross. "And we both hated to lose."

It was not necessarily a rivalry in the friendly sense, either. Tempers boiled over to the point to where fights between the twins would break out on some occasions. Ernest recalled one such occasion in Grenada, saying, "A Grade-A wrestling match broke out on the fairway."

When the two left Ole Miss, the sibling rivalry subsided. Each went their own way and the two are very close. Ernest continued his career in golf, taking over as the head coach of his alma mater in 1979 and staying until 1987. After working as the head professional at the Country Club of Jackson for 16 years, he returned to Ole Miss as coach in 2004.

Ralph pursued a career in accounting and currently serves as the head of the tax department at an accounting firm.

While the rivalry may have crossed the line at times, Ernest feels as though it was good for both in that the two constantly pressed one another to become better players.

"We competed hard against each other, and that taught us to compete hard against others," said Ross.

Who Really Is The Men's Tennis Coach At Ole Miss?

Is Billy Chadwick really the head men's tennis coach at Ole Miss, or is his name really Barney Chadwick? Billy and Barney are identical twins, and on the day they were brought home from the hospital, their id bracelets somehow came off.

"That's a true story," said Billy, born three minutes before Barney. "My mom had no idea who was who, so there was nothing she could do but guess."

Billy has never had any issues being identified with his brother and vice versa, except there was one time it caused a slight problem.

"My favorite story is one time a member of our church stopped me after church and said `praise the Lord, I met your brother.' He said he was in New Orleans with his wife, and they were getting on the elevator and in walks who they thought was me with another woman. Needless to say they met my brother."

Billy and Barney were competitive just like the Ross twins, but in a good way.

"We figured out early on that whatever one of us did, we both got credit for. That was an extremely useful tool in eliminating a lot of the competitiveness that goes hand-in-hand with being a twin."

The two grew up playing junior tennis together and yes, there were the occasional shenanigans.

"There was one time at a junior tournament in Greenwood, it was 110 degrees and Barney was playing. He split sets. It used to be in the juniors that if you split sets you got a 10 minute break and could leave the courts. He left the courts. We negotiated and he said `how much is it going to cost me for you to go out there and take care of this guy.' It's a possibility I went out there and finished the match," said Billy with a smirk.

The twins led Wingfield to the state high school title in 1970, winning the singles and doubles titles. The two moved on to collegiate tennis at Belhaven, helping lead the Blazers to a No. 6 national ranking in 1974. They even played doubles together some.

"When we graduated high school, there were not many programs that gave out athletic scholarships in tennis. We got an offer to Belhaven and it was a package deal. They wanted both of us," Billy said.

Out of college, the two were named as directors of Tennis Center South in Jackson. But then things changed.

"We were going to work together. At the same time, Julie (Billy's wife) and I got engaged. She was in the middle of her [master's] program up here, so she either had to drop out of the program, or we would have had to commute for a year and a half or I could move up here. I wanted to get my MBA, so I talked Warner Alford into hiring me and paying for my school work to be the head women's tennis coach."

The rest as they say is history for Billy. His career accomplishments are well-documented. His brother went on to be the director of tennis at Bridges for 12 years and then ran River Hills Tennis Club for 12 years before recently moving up here to Oxford to start Goose Creek Tennis Club.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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