Tidwell returns to practice field as ‘loyal assistant’
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After five weeks away from the Pioneers, Tidwell and the WCHS players agreed his return Wednesday was met with tension. But as the afternoon’s practice session went on, the team grew more comfortable and fell back into its normal routine.
“They were a little uncomfortable, at first, with him coming back in,” senior lineman Greg Cotten said of the players, who held a team meeting after hearing of Tidwell’s reinstatement Tuesday. “They were afraid we were going to have another big change in the season to set us back again.
“But I don’t think there are going to be any big changes, and the players are pretty comfortable with the way it’s going to go from here on out.”
Tidwell was suspended after his arrest on assault charges, stemming from an incident during halftime of the Pioneers’ Aug. 30 game at Shelbyville where he threw a helmet which struck junior fullback Mario Pezzimenti. After accepting a pre-trial diversion agreement with the Shelbyville district attorney Monday, Tidwell’s suspension was lifted by school officials.
The first-year head coach said with two games remaining on the Pioneers’ schedule, trying to come back to the team and make any changes to the coaching staff’s plans would have been an unwise decision.
“My role the next two weeks — especially this week, is to try to be the most loyal assistant coach to these guys that I can be,” he explained. “They’ve been running the show, so it would not be fair for me to come in and take over.
“I just wanted to get back and be with the program, and it would be a mistake to try to come in and take over. So I was very careful not to make any changes.”
One of the main factors behind his decision to take more of an assistant’s role, Tidwell said, was the way acting head coach Chris Madewell and assistants John Dryden and Matt Turner had performed during his absence.
“They’ve taken a lot of responsibility, and they’ve had to because of a mistake that I made,” he said. “Then at practice (Wednesday), I realized the organization of what they’re doing is outstanding, and I wish I’d have been doing some of that stuff.
“I was very impressed with the job coach Madewell has done as head coach, and the way they all jelled together out there was fantastic to see. And probably the most important thing was the kids are having fun. An 0-8 team, with that many kids out there, having that kind of fun tells you those guys have been doing something right as a coaching staff.”
While meeting with the staff Wednesday, Tidwell said both he and his assistants were able to clear the air after five weeks of almost no communication — a situation that he said led to strained relationship between them.
“There were times when we didn’t communicate, and my feelings got hurt, and their feelings got hurt because of it,” he said about his time away from the team. “They were doing their job, and I didn’t want to tell them what to do. I had messed up, and it was their turn to take over and run it
“I wanted to give them that opportunity, but at the same time they needed me to call and say ‘Hey, you’re doing a good job, keep your head up.’ I didn’t do that. And I felt like I was down, and needed a pick-me-up too, and I wasn’t getting it. So we didn’t communicate. But once we did, we realized we should have said all that day one.”
While expressing his continuing feeling of regret over the entire situation leading to his suspension, Tidwell noted that the incident was ironically beneficial in the way it changed his coaching philosophy and his relationship with the rest of the staff.
“I’ve said from the beginning that all of this is very unfortunate, and I wish like heck it had never happened,” he said. “But it’s almost like it needed to happen in my life, because I’ve learned so much in five weeks, and in the last 24 hours meeting with coaches, that we’re all going to benefit from this.
“This coaching staff is going to become the coaching staff that I originally thought we were going to, with a family atmosphere, because of this taking place. We’ve discussed many things in the last 24 hours that are going to improve us and the whole program. If this all hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have gotten better as a staff.”