By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

 

 

          What was a quiet season of high school football head coaching changes in Central Georgia got a little noisier in last month.

          Corey Jarvis spent one season as Dooly County’s head coach, and is taking on a building project at Lithia Springs, a 5A program in Douglas County.

          It hasn’t had a winning season since 1999, and has been through seven coaches and two winless and eight one-win seasons since then.

          The Lions haven’t won more than two games since 2010, and are 8-72 in that span.

          Jarvis spent three seasons at Dooly County, taking over in the summer when Jimmy Hughes resigned to become athletics director at Crisp County.

          The Bobcats went 7-5, losing 21-0 to Mount Zion-Carroll in the second round of the GHSA Class A Public playoffs.

          Of course, the most notable opening in the state came Thursday afternoon when Colquitt County’s board voted to fire Rush Propst, who it suspended him with pay in February.

          WALB-TV in Albany reported that the county’s investigation is done and taken over by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. At Thursday’s called meeting, 14 people – including at least one current player – signed up to speak, each defending Propst. It said a petition had gotten more than 1,000 signatures in support in a little more than 40 hours.

          The reason for the suspension and investigation have not been publicly disclosed.

          Back to Central Georgia, John Flath walked out of a meeting with principal Dr. David Boland in early February without a job, having resigned after the meeting as Lamar County’s head coach.

          Flath went 5-15 in two seasons.

          Defensive coordinator Jeff Sloan was promoted about a week later to become the Trojans’ eighth coach since the turn of the centur and sixth since 2011: Jason Strickland, Franklin Stephens, Jamie Abrams, Bryan Love, and Flath.

          Sloan – also a wrestling coach - had been at Lamar County, went to Jones County in 2016 and returned to Lamar County.

          Love has moved around, and is again.

          He left Lamar County after one season, -5 in 2016, and then went 6-14 in two years at Woodland-Stockbridge, a region rival of Jones County.

          Now, he’s at 7A Wheeler, which went 37-56 in nine seasons under Michael Collins, now at River Ridge.

          Former Macon County and Central head coach Larry Harold is on the move yet again, taking his fifth job since arriving in Georgia in 2012. This time, it’s a step up and out of state.

          Harold resigned in mid-February after one season at Americus-Sumter – less than a year after he resigned at Central after a year -  to take an assistant’s position at Kentucky State. A South Georgia media outlet incorrectly reported him going to Kent State in Ohio.

          Macon County graduate (1995) Charlie Jackson was hired as the Thorobreds’ head coach in January, after two years as a defensive assistant with the Atlanta Falcons before being fired a few weeks earlier.

          Americus-Sumter finished 3-7 in 2018.

          He replaced Erik Soliday, who left Perry to return to A-S. Soliday in 2014 replaced the fired Dexter Dawson, who went 2-8 at Twiggs County in 2010 and is currently at Warner Robins.

          Taylor County head coach Mark Wilson spent four seasons at Americus-Sumter, too, so is the next one coming from the area?

          Of course. Sort of. The board approved Ross Couch Thursday night. Couch got started in football at GMC, then coached boys and girls basketball – and middle school football – at John Hancock, leaving there in 2011.

          Jones County’s region is undergoing some changes.

          Kevin Whitley left Stockbridge, after seven straight seasons of at least 11 wins plus five region titles, for New Manchester, which has two winning seasons in its eight-year history.

          And there is Love’s departure from Woodland-Stockbridge, which picked up Griffin head coach Antonio Andrews. Andrews was dismissed in February after going 28-8 in three seasons.

          Andrews was on the Bears’ staff with Jones County head coach Justin Rogers and new Rutland head coach Rusty Easom.

          Jarvis, in fact, was offered the job at Griffin in 2016 and approved by the school board, but he declined it to stay at Mays.

          Where he was placed on administrative leave a few months later – for, among other things, misappropriation of funds – and fired seven months later, then becoming Dooly County’s defensive coordinator.

          Former Jones County head coach Dwight Jones is on the move again, taking over at Pacelli, his third job since leaving the Greyhounds in 2013-14. He went 11-11 in two seasons at Harris County and then 6-24 in three seasons at Russell County, Ala., just across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus.