Tom Shoemake stood for all the right things at Florence. He instilled values into his players and they responded with success. His Florence Gophers won 3 Class 2A State Championships under Shoemake. The 1987 and 1989 teams were both 13-0. The 1991 team beat Kearney Ray in a tight 10-6 contest. Coach Shoemake was active in the Arizona Coaches Association and participated in several of the ACA All Star games held in Thatcher at Eastern Arizona College. Tom once had a team that won games by such lopsided scores he would put his big linemen in the backfield to just have some fun running the ball...the problem was all 3 of those linemen weighed over 300#. Coach Shoemake demonstrated a tremendous amount of courage standing up for his boy's pre-game prayers which caused him to ultimately resign from his position at Florence.