Dovey Fair Anderson attended Thomasville High School and earned a math degree from Howard College, now Samford University. While on a football scholarship at Howard, he played in the inaugural game at Legion Field as the stadium opened the fall of 1927.

Upon graduation, he had several offers to coach, but decided to put his education to good use and took a job with the Alabama highway department as a civil engineer. The football fans in Thomasville had other thoughts at the time.

Paying jobs were scarce during the early years of the depression and teaching jobs were difficult to come by. Often teachers would go unpaid for the entire year because the school system simply did not have any funding.

The town of Thomasville leaders got together in 1931 and made him an offer to coach the local high school football team and get paid to do it.

Anderson talked with his father, who owned the local jewelry store, who advised him that there would always be children to teach and coach, no matter the economy. He took the job.

Over the next 31 years he remained the head football coach at Thomasville. The money was well spent to bring him home. His teams won many more games than they lost. His record is 178 wins, 82 losses and 25 ties. Almost half of his wins were shutouts. He coached three undefeated teams and five teams that only lost one game.

Anderson also coached basketball for over 20 years. He was inducted into the Alabama High School Athletic Associations Hall of Fame in 1991.