By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          Rusty Easom is like most coaches, one to look for a challenge and not take on another one until meeting the previous one.

          Sometimes, circumstances change the plan, and that’s the case with Easom.

          It was something of a coup when Rutland got Easom back in January of 2019 to revive its flailing football program, one that was on a 23-game losing streak.

          That came to an end in Easom’s first game with a win over Hawkinsville. Progress continued, and was slow, interrupted by COVID-19, but it was there, and picking up steam.

2019: New Rutland boss has taken an interesting Central Georgia-heavy road to heading the Hurricanes

          Somebody else will benefit from that progress, though, because Wednesday was Easom’s last day at Rutland, the second-year head coach being approved Tuesday night to take over at Griffin.

          “It was bittersweet walking out of that building for the last time,” Easom said while riding through Griffin Wednesday afternoon to his home near Senoia. “A lot of hours and work and sweat went into that place.”

          It’s a move that will raise a few eyebrows because of where Easom is coming from, and that he’s coming with a 3-15 record.

          Griffin is pretty used to three wins a month.

          Easom knows that, having spent a chunk of his career with the Bears’ run of at least nine wins a year, including 15-0 and the GHSA Class 4A state title in 2013. The Bears’ last losing season was 208 in 2000.

          He was on the staff that included former Jones County coach and current Colquitt County boss Justin Rogers. When he took the Rutland job, moving from the defensive coordinator spot at East Coweta, he had been part of a 140-43 collection of teams.

          While it was a no-brainer to accept the job when offered, well, it wasn’t 100 percent immediately a simple call, from where all that work was leading to at Rutland, as he told the Hurricanes. And it was a short list of schools that could have attracted him.

          “I told them that there was a big part of me that wanted to see how this third year goes, because we laid the foundation,” he said. “And this is the year to kind of bust through the ceiling, for all that hard work, and reap the benefits of what we’ve done.”

          But family was the top priority. For one, his commute drops from about an hour and 20 minutes to 22 minutes.

          “I told (players), ‘If I chose to (stay) and choose you guys, I’m choosing you over my own family, my own kids,’” said Easom, 41. “I couldn’t do that.”

          Breaking the long losing streak at Rutland was huge, and the Hurricanes finished 2-8 in 2019, losing by two to Worth County and by seven to Pike County, with some games more competitive than final scores.

          The changing of the culture was taking place, and then came COVID-19, blindside-blocking that progress.

          Easom was proud that the discipline had grown to where the Hurricanes had a 2020 season, with only the game against Howard canceled because of COVID-19.

          “When you’re at a place where you’re trying to build it and get a culture going, it had a large impact,” Easom said. “Yeah, there’s a lot of things that didn’t go the way we wanted ‘em to, but the fact that we were able to be disciplined enough to follow protocols, follow COVID procedures day in and day out, to make sure we could just get a chance to play, was something the probably would not have happened the year before.”

          The Hurricanes went 1-7, with more games slipping away: a 10-point loss to Worth County and a five-point loss to Spalding. Easom was encouraged by some games that had bigger margins of defeat that didn’t tell the whole story, games where a few Rutland mistakes were pounced on by better teams and converted to points, games that were more competitive in the second half than the final score.

          Jessie Phelps Jr. was a major bright spot, finishing with 1,329 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns, cracking 300 yards against Worth County and ACE, but also going for 127 against Perry and 170 against Baldwin, who finished 1-2 in Region 4-4A.

          As this spring season approached, Easom preached that players couldn’t use COVID as an excuse to miss time and practice, and they didn’t.

          He said the Hurricanes return basically six starters on offense and seven on defense. The non-region schedule is Jeff Davis, ACE, Luella, and Worth County.

          Griffin has been without a head coach since Kareem Reid resigned in March to join Gus Malzahn’s staff at Central Florida. The school has also been without a principal for a spell, delaying the replacement of Reid.

          The school approved about two weeks ago Herbert Chambers, an assistant principal at Veterans and father of former Baldwin quarterback Tajhea Chambers, as the new principal.

          Easom is the latest Bibb County educator heading to the system. Keith Simmons was at Griffin and came to Macon with current Macon Bibb superintendent Curtis Jones, and his time at Griffin overlapped Easom’s stint.

          The Bears went through spring without a head coach, and none of the staff was there when Easom roamed the sidelines. But Easom will see plenty of familiar faces when he does show up to work, and they’re hoping for some stability.

          Easom becomes Griffin’s fourth head coach since Devoursney left after that magical 2013 season, following Jarrett Laws (17-6 in two seasons, now at Salem and Antonio Andrews (28-8 in three seasons, now an assistant at Northeast), as well as Reid (18-7 in two seasons).

          Things haven’t been smooth with the program since 2013, and Easom is aware of that and plans to change that.

          “It’s like I told my new principal,” the father of two said. “I got 11 years left (to reach 30 in the state system). My plan is to finish my 11 years at Griffin High School. There’s a short list of jobs that you could sit there and say that are better programs than that one.”

          Devoursney went 129-41 in 14 seasons at Griffin.

          “I told ‘em my plan is to be here 11 years,” the Upson-Lee grad said. “Maybe longer. Devo, he and I are still really close. If I’m sitting there close to 129, I’ll probably stay on for another year.”