The Scoop: Coaching carousel continues
As much as I hate to say it, school officials might as well install a merry-go-round at the high school. They could call it the coaching carousel.
If there’s one constant with Warren County athletics, it’s that coaches come and coaches go. And this takes place with alarming regularity.
It hasn’t been too long since I was the one sitting at the sports desk, covering the Pioneers and trying to root the home team to victory. Now, almost four years later, there’s a new head coach leading every high school sport except tennis, track and volleyball.
There’s been turnover in all the high-profile sports. We’ve had two football coaches who have stayed here two years and another who stayed here three. Who knows the fate of current coach Gerald Tidwell, who didn’t have the luxury of showing off his Xs and Os thanks to a seven-game suspension.
I thought the Pioneers had their football coaching problems solved some eight years ago when – and how is this for pulling out a name from the past – Sid Fritts was hired.
Most of us probably don’t remember (but I do because I had the misfortune of suffering through every game) that Fritts went 0-10 his first season here. He coached a hapless Pioneer team that failed to hold the lead all season.
To Fritts’ credit, and a hard-nosed work ethic that ultimately had a role in his departure, he literally yelled, sweated and pushed the Pioneers to a 3-7 mark the following season. Then with a group of talented players such as Lee Ramsey, Alan Perkins, Sam Womack, Nathan Shack, Michael Parsley and Clint Gribble returning, Fritts left for Georgia.
Word on the street is that several people (several parents for those who can’t read between the lines) were concerned that Fritts was being too tough on the kids. They wanted little Billy to be pampered on the football field.
So Fritts up and left and Glen Campbell rode into town. In the process, Campbell inherited a Pioneer team ripe with talent and a team that finished 4-6. I’ve always thought if Fritts had stayed, that Pioneer team could have at least finished 6-4 and perhaps rekindled some interest in football. Instead, it was just another losing season – albeit a good losing season in Pioneer terms.
What I don’t understand is why Warren County can’t keep its coaches. Why does it seem we are looking for a new basketball coach or a new football coach every two years?
Of course I’m just an armchair quarterback when it comes to these matters. I’m like a fan shouting in plays from the sideline. What I say doesn’t count. But it does, however, make sense.
I think, especially in the case of the football program, Warren County needs to hire a homegrown product. And I’m not saying that to try and run Tidwell out of town. But I think Tidwell’s stay here is going to be much like that of Fritts and Campbell, and even that of basketball coach Doug Keil. He stays for a few years and then he moves on.
If Warren County is ever going to make true progress in its athletic programs, it’s going to take stability. That means keeping a coach for more than a couple years. The only way I see that happening is by giving the job to a person who is from here and who wants to stay here – a Matt Turner for example.
Give that coach 10 years to install a system from pee wee football, to middle school football, to the high school level. And make the playbook simple, maybe six plays. If our kids runs those same six plays from age 8 to age 18, they are bound to get the hang of them.
As it is, the only thing a number of our high school athletes are getting used to is spinning in circles. That’s because we can’t seem to hop off the coaching carousel.
(James Clark is editor for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at standard @blomand.net.)