He's got a record most high school coaches only dream of, but after 13 years at the helm of the Fort Mill High School Academic Team, Jason Ford is handing the reins to someone else.

"There's something to be said for going out on your own terms," Ford said last week. "It just feels like the right time to pass the torch."

Stephen Lentz, another English teacher at Fort Mill High, will be taking over coaching duties for the team this year. Lentz did not immediately return a call for comment.

Over the years, Ford's teams racked up a record of 481 wins against 204 losses at the high school level. He also coached an academic team at the middle school level at Fort Mill Middle for three years with a record of 44-10 before moving to Fort Mill High, where he took over coaching the ninth grade team. From 1980 to 1991, Fort Mill High's teams participated in the statewide Winthrop Academic Challenge.

"One of the things that blew me away is how large it got," Kurt Preisach said. "We were traveling around to all these little towns."

"The biggest trip was going to the middle school that Kevin Garnet went to," John Kinard said.

"His jersey was still hanging in their gym," Ford added.

Preisach and Kinard are among a handful of former students who were members of Ford's middle school team and the high school team. Ben Ward is another member of that group.

"I can always remember the practices the best," Ward said. "There was always a solid 30 minutes of cutting up before Mr. Ford got to asking some questions."

When Ford started coaching the academic team at Fort Mill High in 1995, it was only for freshmen. The team competed in a regional league sponsored by the Olde English Consortium and faced other freshmen from the Piedmont area. During each of the next three years, Ford expanded the team to include a higher grade level, eventually fielding both JV and varsity squads. The team left the consortium league behind and began competing statewide and even nationally.

In 1999, Ford's team won its first tournament title at the USC-Lancaster Honors Bowl. The next year, the team won its second tournament title at the Mauldin Academic Challenge and got its first invite to the National Academic Quiz Tournaments Nationals at Georgia Tech. In 2003, the team ranked second in the state, made the quarterfinal round at the nation's oldest quiz bowl tournament, the Yale Academic Challenge, and defeated the defending national champion team from St. John's High School in Texas at the NAQT Nationals.

The team brought home it's first state title in 2005.

Overall, Ford has shepherded his teams to the final four in 25 different tournaments and brought home 14 tournament titles.

Ford's teams have gone to NAQT or Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence national tournaments 10 times.

"I remember the buzzers," Ward said. "Anywhere you go it's always different and questionable if they'll work."

"Yeah, but half the fun is complaining about what didn't go right," Kinard said.

Another former team member, Andrew Alexander, likes to remember a match his team won on the final question against a "Goliath of quiz bowl," Thomas Jefferson (similar to the S.C. Governor's School) of Virginia.

"We were way out of our league against these quiz bowl [contestants] from Thomas Jefferson," Alexander recalled. "It was down to the last question and if we got it right with the early bonus we'd win, if not we'd lose. The question started out 'This Supreme Court decision ...' and Stephen Hou, our captain, buzzes in before they got any further and says 'the Miranda case,' and it's right and we won."

"I remember a lot of quirky facts," Ryan Gustafson, a team member from last year, said.

"We're all great at cocktail parties," Alexander said.

"And bar trivia," Preisach added.

"Academic team is one of my favorite things I did in my high school career," Kinard said.

Ford decided he didn't have enough time to devote to the team with his other school and personal responsibilities, but he's leaving on a high note. He finished the 2007-08 school year with a winning record of 29-24, and his 10th trip to a national tournament. The team won its final match of the tournament, though it wasn't in the title round.