By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com

The carousel was quiet, and then not so much, and the latest spin was unexpected.

Jarmarcus Johnson is out at Rutland, the opening posted Thursday on the Bibb County School District employment site.

Johnson resigned last Wednesday after two seasons.

“I just felt like for me and my family, it was best for em to step away. In order to do the things I wanted to do or felt like that needed to be done here, I didn’t feel like I was going to be able to do that with the resources that I was given.”

He met last Wednesday with principal Wendy Pooler to discuss a variety of aspects in trying to continue building the football program. As of now, offensive coordinator Antwan Toomer is the only full-time staff coach left. Defensive coordinator Tevin Davis, who came to Rutland from Mary Persons with Johnson, recently became a father and moved to Florida.

Johnson, who said he paid a community coach out of his pocket, wasn’t given enough assurances of increased administrative and finanicial support to return, and resigned. The job was posted on the county education website Thursday morning.

Feb. 16: GMC Prep’s new head football coach is part of a football family, with an extensive resume
Feb. 14: Warner Robins’ new head coach brings familiarity and success back to a territory he knows
Feb. 9: After coaching in five decades, Dodge County’s Hardin ready for some family time
Feb. 8: Holes galore open up a Westfield with departure of ‘Mr. Do Everything’ Champion
Feb. 7: Brentwood’s Brown stepping down as head coach, to stay at Brentwood as a football coach
Jan. 24: Putnam County has a new coach
Jan. 20: Central hires former Salem coach
Jan. 17: From Houston County to Peach County, Ben Bailey is now the boss at Northside
Jan: 9: Kaboom: Warner Robins’ Westbrook heading to Peach County
Dec 27: GMC’s Coleman resigns for new job
Dec 14: Alligood to Jones County
Dec. 12: Another Central Georgia coaching bomb drops: Alligood resigns at Northside
Dec. 8: Campbell un-retires, taking over at Westfield, Fitzpatrick returns to baseball full-time
Dec. 6: Pope resigns at Putnam County, Williamson at Hawkinsville
Dec. 2: Central’s Sample out
Nov. 30: End of an era, Chad Campbell retires from the only place he’s worked, Peach County
Aug. 15: Another Macon private school era is closing: Greg Moore’s 22nds year as FPD’s head coach is his last, and ‘I have incredible peace’

Johnson went 6-13 in two seasons after being hired in May of 2021 from the Mary Persons staff. He followed Rusty Easom, who went 3-13 in two seasons before leaving to take over at Griffin, where he was let go after two seasons with a 7-13 mark.

Easom succeeded Mark Daniel, who departed after going 2-27, including consecutive winless seasons.

Two of Johnson’s hires went from Rutland to the college level. Rod Patterson is now at Northwestern State, an FCS/I-AA program in Louisiana that’s in the Southland Conference, and Chris Anderson is at Hampton, a member of FCS/I-AA team in the Big South.

“The quality of people I’ve been bring in are good football coaches,” Johnson said. “But …”

Rutland’s next head coach will be the seventh since the program started in 2003. The Hurricanes have made the playoffs twice, and not since 2013 under George Collins, Rutland’s second – and still only second – winning season.

Johnson played at Mary Persons and coached their twice, as well as at Griffin and a short stint as an assistant at Ware County.

He came to Rutland with a background of successful program in hopes of installing some of those traits in the Hurricanes.

“I got ‘em believing over here,” Johnson said. “I got ‘em expecting to win a little bit. But I have to tell them I can’t keep doing it at the level in which we’re doing it with the resources here.”

Hawkinsville finally gets its man

If at first you don’t succeed, resume interviewing.

That’s what Hawkinsville had to do after its initial finalists – including one current Central Georgia head coach and a longtime former head coach and assistant – changed their minds.

Some of the candidates were re-interviewed before the school picked Tim Suttles.

Suttles resigned as athletics director at Montgomery County last March – about the same time the school announced former Dublin basketball standout Izell Stephens as head boys basketball coach - as did his wife and cheerleading coach Carmen Suttles. He then joined the football staff at Jeff Davis for the 2022 season.

The Montgomery County alum was promoted from assistant and was the Eagles’ head coach from 2019-2021, leaving that job for administration after an 8-3 season in 2021 that gave him a 19-13 record in his only head coaching job. That was Montgomery County’s best three-year run since Dodge County legend John Peacock went 24-9 from 19887-89.

Suttles also coached track at Montgomery County.

He replaces Shane Williamson, who went 11-29 in four seasons, also serving as Hawkinsville’s principal for nearly two years before moving to another county schools administrative position last fall.

Suttles is Hawkinsville’s sixth head coach since 2000, following Williamson, Will Conner, county athletics director and 2014 state champ David Daniell, Cam Black, and Lee Campbell.

Dodge County plucks new head coach from neighbor

Thomas Smith turned a 64-48 record and a state championship at GISA school Robert Toombs Christian Academy into a step up to GHSA Class A Wheeler County, and is making another jump up, this time to Class AA Dodge County.

He takes over for Ray Hardin, who resigned last month after two seasons.

Smith went 11-20 at Wheeler County, but the Bulldogs were 10-11 the past two years, venturing into a ranking for a week for the first time in a few decades. In 2021, four of Wheeler County’s four losses came by a total of 15 points. It was also the first time since 2011 that the Bulldogs scored more points than they gave up.

He graduated from Toombs County and Liberty U.

Smith is Dodge County’s seventh head coach since 2000, following Hardin, Ken Cofer, Rex Hodges, Lee Campbell, Greg Robinson, and John Peacock.

Brentwood announces football, basketball moves

As long as football was going on, Bert Brown was Adam Lord’s boss.

Brown was Brentwood’s head football coach, and Lord was the War Eagles’ defensive coordinator.

Otherwise, Lord was Brown’s boss as Brentwood’s athletics director, as well as head boys basketball coach.

Brown retired from his spot back in February while Lord continued to lead the boys basketball team, with Tucker Shull near him on the bench.

Now, Lord has been promoted, football-wise, to the head football job and Shull is replacing Lord as the head boys basketball coach.

Lord spent several years at George Walton as head boys basketball coach.

Lord is a Brentwood grad who took over as AD in July of 2019, the same month Shull joined the staff.

Shull came to Brentwood in the summer of 2019. The George Walton graduate was a three-sport letterman competing for, well, Lord in football and track. While in college at Georgia, he aided George Walton in football and basketball.

Cherry new boys basketball boss at Peach County

For decades, there was a Cherry coaching basketball at Peach County.

Then Maxine Cherry retired after the 2015-16 season as the Trojans girls head coach. But a Cherry is back in charge.

Steve Cherry, Maxine’s son, is the new Peach County boys head coach. The school tweeted the announcement on March 1.

Cherry is a Byron native and graduate of Peach County (2002), where he played football, basketball and competed in track and cross country, averaging 24 points, eight boards and six assists as a Trojans senior.

He played at Tallahassee Community College – earning All-Panhandle Conference honors - and Chattanooga, and began his coaching career at TCC as a volunteer and then full-time assistant. He has coached at Florida State University School, and Gadsden County, Florida, as well as lower-level schools in Florida.

In two seasons as head boys coach at Gadsden County, Cherry went 20-7, 9-7, and 16-7, according to MaxPreps. He joined the Peach County staff this year.

Gordon was released from his coaching duties in January after serving a suspension for the team earning more than a dozen technical fouls.

Longtime Central Georgia coach Billy Sellers, who has been in the Peach County system for several years and is currently the head volleyball coach, became the interim head coach.

Again.

Prelvis Paster of Lamar County was hired in the spring of 2016 to succeed Terry Smith, who left after a 2-22 year, having taken over for longtime coach Rickey Wray. But Paster suffered a stroke in the fall of 2019, and Seller filled in that season with the boys team.

Then he filled in for a substantial portion of a season as the interim girls head coach while then-coach Tamica Sneed battled through COVID-19. He is still the school’s volleyball coach.

Sellers was the official head coach - as a staff member, as per GHSA rules - but Cherry handled things.

Windsor taps an alum for football

It wasn’t long ago that Dylan Bass was wearing the blue and white football uniform at Windsor.

Now he’s in charge of those wearing that same uniform.

The school announced in a social media post that Bass had been hired to replace the retired Randy Grace.

Bass graduated in 2015, and has been on the staff for three years, assisting in football, basketball and track.

“Windsor Academy has been a special place to me since the first day that I stepped on campus as a freshman in high school,” Bass said in the announcement. “Little did I know that this place would practically save my life over the next few years. Being back here now as Head Football Coach, really is coming back full circle.”

Thorpe takes over Northside boys hoops

Reggie Thorpe has been at Northside for a long time, having graduated from there in 2004 and spending the start of his coaching career on Green Street.

Now, he’s in charge, named this week as the new head boys basketball coach, the school announcing the move on social media on Wednesday, a day after he tweeted the promotion.

He’ll be the Eagles’ fourth head coach in less than a decade, following Don Hudson, who was hired from Houston County and coached the Eagles for two seasons, going 8-37. Hudson was named to the Peach County football staff in late January.

Thorpe has worked at Thomson Middle School as an interrelated special education parapro and currently teaches health and phys ed at Northside, and has been an Eagles assistant.

He had been on the football staff for more than a dozen years, last coaching running backs in 2022.