​WAYNESBORO — Terry Waters is a legendary wrestling coach in the area. He was inducted into the Virginia Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2022, and his photo and biographical info are in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Most assumed he would coach wrestling until he retired and then just walk away.Raised in a hot bed of wrestling in Pennsylvania, Waters was a student at Milton Hershey School, a boarding school for low-income families in Hershey. He and his brother were among the first Black students at the school after it integrated.Locally, Waters has coached at Staunton, Riverheads and Fort Defiance high schools, as well as at Washington & Lee University, where he was an assistant. He came to Fishburne in 2015.This past summer, he announced he was retiring from coaching. It seemed to be the end of an amazing career, but then he announced, not too longer afterward, that he would be staying at the Waynesboro school to serve as athletic director.He’s now through the fall season and about to start winter sports. “It hasn’t gone totally smooth, but it’s been a great transition,” Waters said. “The thing is I still get to coordinate a lot with the kids. That was the big decision for me, how much involvement would I get to have with the kids.”He is now dealing with 20 or so coaches, not just his own assistants like he did as wrestling coach. That has been challenging.”You’re dealing with 20, 24 personalities,” he said. “That becomes a situation where you have to take a step back and try to understand each coach individually.”Coaching for 49 years, Waters feels he had a great relationship with most of his athletic directors. He has tried to take lessons he learned from them into this job. He learned what kind of athletic director he wanted to be and what kind he didn’t want to be. “I wanted to be fair, and I believe that I’m open and positive if a coach wants to talk with me,” he said. “Obviously taking over a new position, you want to change some things — your approach and things like that — but overall it’s gone pretty well.”Fishburne offers 10 sports. Asked if he ever thought about being an athletic director, Waters took a long pause before answering. He said maybe it was in the back of his mind, but it was never something he really pursued. “When this happened, I really think it was God opening the door,” Waters said. “This situation just came open.”Every year, at least in recent years, someone would ask the veteran coach how much longer. His answer was always one more year. He’d talk with his wife about his future in coaching after the season ended. She would tell him if he still had the energy and the desire, he should keep coaching. “My brother pretty much summed it up when he told me if you like what you’re doing, there is no sense in retiring,” he said. But this summer, he clearly remembers waking up one morning and thinking, “I’m done.” He told the Fishburne staff about his decision. He wa