By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

Mark Farriba graduated from Stratford in 1974.

Then he returned as an assistant football coach for six years, then was promoted to head football coach from 2003-2006, left for the same position at Prince Avenue Christian and built that program into a state power, then returned to Stratford as head coach in January of 2013, taking over athletics director duties after the 2013-14 year when Grady Smith’s retirement took effect.

And Farriba retired as Stratford’s head football coach at the end of the 2021 season, giving him 13 years as a head football coach, 12 as a student at the school, six as an assistant, and eight as athletics director.

About a year of various discussions about the state and direction of the athletics department between Farriba and head of school Logan Bowlds came to a head in March, and intensified.

The result: Farriba resigned as athletics director, effective officially May 31, but in reality on a recent Friday.

April Fool’s Day.

Stratford’s Farriba at peace, ready for beach & pickleball with his wife, and ‘I would love to help people’

Farriba had a meeting early that Friday morning with nearly all of Stratford’s athletics department personnel, sharing what had transpired in March, and then thanking them for their work. With that, he finished packing up and was out of the athletics building adjacent to the football field and practice field for the last time.

The school was expected to at some point publicly announce the promotion of soccer coach Iain Jones to full-time athletics director, to complete a plan reportedly in place as it became clearer that Farriba and Stratford would be parting ways.

Longtime Jones County coach and AD Veal to take over at Stratford

But he was termed as interim athletics director in Bowlds’ March email to Stratford parents about Farriba’s departure, and, in another unexpected eyebrow-raiser, the school has hired longtime Jones County athletics director and former coach Barry Veal as the new full-time AD. Bowlds emailed the Stratford coaching staff and some others Friday night about hiring one of the deans of Central Georgia high school sports.

It capped, so to speak, a surprising period at Stratford.

Farriba confirmed that he met twice that week in late March, before his resignation and departure, with Bowlds, on Wednesday and Thursday.

“I went in there hoping,” Farriba said. “As I told Mr. Bowlds, this was where I wanted to be and I was hoping that we were going to be able to ... We had talked the day before about some different scenarios, and I felt good about our conversation.”

But nothing, in effect, had changed, and Farriba decided it was time to go, immediately.

“We both agreed that this was probably the best thing,” Farriba said. “It’s been my experience that when it's time for somebody to leave, regardless of good or bad, usually it’s better to just leave rather than hang around. Especially for nine more weeks.”

The true beginning of the end of Farriba as athletics director apparently began in earnest in early March, around the time he was named the GHSA Region 7-A Private athletics director of the year for the second year in a row. Last year, Stratford finished sixth overall, fourth in boys and eighth in girls, in the Georgia Athletic Director’s Association Director’s Cup’s Class A Private standings, which awards points for postseason success in each classification.

This year, with spring sports remaining, Stratford is 19th overall, 20th in boys and 18th in girls.

March was a month of discussions – with Bowlds and reportedly a few members of the 21-member Board of Trustees as well – and negotiations and options, and of progress that didn’t last.

Farriba was offered the newly-created position as Dean of Students at Stratford, and he was reportedly willing to accept that, but wanted to remain as athletics director. Farriba offered other options that included him remaining as AD.

According to sources: Bowlds wanted Farriba to stay at Stratford in a different role than athletics director, but Farriba wasn’t going to consider any options that didn’t include him remaining as athletics director, if only for one more year. Too, Farriba had a preference as to who would succeed him as athletics director, but Stratford had reportedly already decided on Jones as the next athletics director.

Adding to the disagreements, according to sources, was the fact that Farriba initially wanted to hand off the head coaching football job to Chance Jones, on the Stratford staff after a stint as head coach at Tattnall, right after he resigned, but the school wanted a search, which led to four interviews and the eventual hiring of Jones. When it was apparent that there would be a new athletics director, sources say, there was no search planned.

Initially, some sources expected an announcement of some sort to be made in mid-March, and then a week later. But discussions continued, with Farriba hoping to find clarification and a positive, albeit perhaps short-term, solution.

Nearly the entire Stratford athletics department as well as athletics director emeritus Grady Smith (retired) soon met with Bowlds. The meeting grew emotional, the coaches in their support of Farriba, who has also coached lacrosse at Stratford in recent years.

Head boys basketball coach Sean Sweeney is a Farriba backer, and said he started looking for other jobs when the situation emerged. He shared a tweet on April 4 that he had accepted a head coaching job just outside of Jacksonville, Fla. And others have made known their dissatisfaction with how the end of Farriba’s Stratford career had developed.

Farriba emailed the coaching staff late on that Thursday, the last day of March, that Friday would be his last day, and asked for a Friday-morning meeting. He said the first part of the meeting, a review of the situation, was fairly matter of fact. But when he started talking about the coaches, it grew tougher.

“The second part was the hard part, to tell them how much I appreciated them and how much they meant to me and how much my association with Stratford meant to me,” Farriba said. “That was the hard part. And how special they are.

“It was all about us.”

Bowlds emailed Stratford parents days after Farriba’s departure:

“Last week, I accepted Mark Farriba’s resignation from Stratford Academy. Coach Farriba and I conversed for more than a year about the direction I wanted to take Stratford’s athletic department – a direction, unfortunately, we could not agree on. Thus, for months, Coach Farriba and I discussed different positions for him within the school, outside of athletics.

“When I presented him with a new full-time, lateral Dean of Students position, he unfortunately declined the offer and resigned. I remain disappointed that we were unable to come to a solution that would have allowed Mark to remain at Stratford.”

Bowlds then praised Farriba for his success and years of service at and representation of Stratford, writing that the school “will forever be grateful” for that. He wrote that Jones, a 1996 alum, would serve as interim athletic director.

Bowlds replied to an April 6 email from The Central Georgia Sports Report with a short update, noting that he and Farriba had worked with middle-school and upper-school heads to craft the “first full-time Dean of Students role for our middle and upper school students … but it ultimately didn’t end up working out” and that Farriba was leaving at the end of his contract date.

He said Jones had accepted his “offer of being interim AD to ensure a smooth transition.”

The offer of Dean of Students only and not athletics director as well would have involved a decrease in compensation.

Farriba publicly announced his retirement as football coach after the 2021 season. He finished with a career record of 215-134-3, according to the Georgia High School Football Historians Association website.

Of coaches who spent the majority of their careers in Central Georgia, Farriba is behind only Robert Davis (354-74-1 at Warner Robins and Westside), Dan Pitts (346-109-4 at Mary Persons), Barney Hester (340-167-9, mostly at Tattnall and Howard), Ronnie Jones (329-114-3, mostly at Westfield), Conrad Nix (260-65-0, mostly at Northside), Rodney Collins (248-162-5, mostly at Stratford, with two years at John Milledge), and Al Reaves (216-161-5, mostly at Putnam County).

In 2020, he became the 12th active coach to win his 200th game.

His first head football coaching job came a jog away, at FPD. He led the Vikings from 1985-1996, with three 10-win seasons, topped by 12-1 and a state championship in the old Southeastern Association of Independent Schools (which merged with the Georgia Association of Independent Schools in 1986 to form the current Georgia Independent Schools Association). He was also, at some point, head coach of girls basketball and baseball at FPD, as well as working with track at some point.

His first stint at Stratford followed, from 1997-2006, the final four as head coach before heading to Prince Avenue.

Farriba, 65, had planned to stay on as athletics director to help groom a successor. The school’s website lists head girls soccer coach Kate Blankenship and head girls basketball coach Ed Smith as assistant athletics directors and Terry Sowell as director of athletics operations.

He also wanted to help Stratford and local private schools Tattnall, FPD, and Mount de Sales navigate their departure from the GHSA and return to the GISA and its still-forming athletics arm, the Georgia Independent Athletic Association.

“I spent a lot of time and energy working on that,” said Farriba about a conversation in December with Bowlds about staying as AD. “Absolutely. I want to see that through. No problem.”

Farriba said he wasn’t sure what specifically precipitated the move to replace him so quickly after retiring from football, although he noted a number of conversations in the past several months that perhaps should have prepared him. He understands who’s in charge, and that he’s not going to be beloved by everybody.

“I know that there are people out there, there are some people out there that don't feel that great about me,” Farriba said. “There are an awful lot of people that do. I get it.”

Farriba had started packing up in late March, initially just to get out of the football coach’s office and make room for successor Jones. He picked up the pace as it was clear that neither side was budging.

“It's been 60 years since I first walked through the halls of Stratford,” Farriba said. “It’s been an important place in my life. A very, very significant piece of my life. This is what I want. I want what's best for Stratford. Obviously, apparently what I think is best is different than what some other people think is best.

“This is not the way that I had hoped my time at Stratford would end.”