By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

Westfield’s coaching carousel spins, interestingly

Ryan Wetherington started working at Westfield in 2018, with the baseball program under head coach Rob Fitzpatrick and assistant Danny Camp.

Then he joined the softball program under head coach Danny Camp.

Camp moved north – coaching-wise, because he’s lived in Monticello for years – to take over the Stratford baseball program in 2021, and Wetherington assisted new softball coach Brock Van Faussien in 21-22, for his lone season in charge.

Wetherington then succeeded Van Fuassien. Fitzpatrick had added head football coach to his role in 2020. Fitzpatrick resigned his football duties in December, and now is no longer a Westfield Hornet, and Wetherington has his second head-coaching job.

Fitzpatrick is now a Stratford Eagle. Assistant. For baseball. Under his former assistant. And Wetherington, who Fitzpatrick called an energetic and tireless worker and student of the games involving the diamond, is now the Hornets’ head baseball coach, adding that to his head softball duties, as announced Monday by Westfield.

Got it?

Wetherington takes over for the second of two head coaches who tutored him, two coaches who have swapped the positions they had when working together at Westfield.

Yes, it’s been a busy year at Westfield, which hired Peach County’s Chad Campbell as football coach and then had to replace do-everything athletics director and coach Chip Champion, doing so with former Wilcox County football coach and Tiftarea coach Mark Ledford.

And it’s been a notable year job-wise in the Fitzpatrick house.

“Everything’s good,” Fitzpatrick said. “Except my wife’s got me doing a lot of stuff around the house.”

The honey-do list became relevant after Westfield’s baseball season came to an end on May 5 with a 10-7 and 10-2 playoff loss to Bethlehem Christian, Fitzpatrick going out with a headscratching series.

Westfield led 7-1 late in the first game after getting two in the top of the seventh, only to watch Bethlehem Christian score nine in the bottom half for a 10-7 win.

The shock lingered for the Hornets in the second game. The only consolation is that the Knights are in the GIAA Class 4A championship series.

Fitzpatrick said the job scenario began to develop last December. The 54-year-old had decided to give up football then after three seasons, one as interim, as the program went through transition after the retirement of longtime head coach Ronnie Jones.

Assistant Jamey Watson went 7-25 in three seasons and Bruce Lane 3-9 in one, so Fitzpatrick became interim head coach, and went 7-3-1. He was named the full-time head coach, and followed with 8-3 and 5-6, the last season coming in the transition of the GISA forming an athletics arm, the GIAA, which included an influx of new and of familiar old programs.

He was preparing for his 15th season as head baseball coach, commuting from Macon yet again. But he thought he had one or two more years at Westfield in him, mainly because of his youngest son Connor, who will be a junior.

“But we’ve lived in Macon the last 20-something years,” Fitzpatrick said. “He’s got friends all over the place. That transition … he’s an outgoing kid, knows a lot of people. But it’s tough for everybody a little bit.

“At the same time, he’s excited. Him being excited makes me excited.”

The opening developed at Stratford, and Fitzpatrick didn’t think – between the school, the athletics department, Camp, being closer to his father all the time, and that new commute – that he could wait.

It was an easy call, and a hard one.

“Great, great people I worked with at Westfield,” Fitzpatrick said. “The faculty, great coaches. It’s been great.”

And Wetherington as his successor gives him another batch of contentment and satisfaction.

“He’s been great,” Fitzpatrick said. “He’s been kind of my right-hand man. Him and Jarrod (Lewis) have been awesome for the last however many years, four or five years, they’ve been with me, and just rock solid. I think he’s ready to take over.”

Despite relative inexperience compared to those he previously worked for, Wetherington kept alive Westfield’s streak of state softball titles that started under Camp, now at six. He led the Hornets to a stunning 28-0 record – including wins over GHSA Class 4A West Laurens and 3A Mary Persons – and the state title last fall, beating Tattnall 6-5 for the hardware.

The two talked Monday night after Westfield’s announcement, and Fitzpatrick expects to maintain the friendship, with some baseball talk sprinkled in.

“I told him he could bounce ideas off me, ask me any questions he wants,” Fitzpatrick said. “I want to see him have success. I want him to call me. I want to help him out.”

Except, obviously, when the Hornets and Eagles tangle. This spring, Fitzpatrick’s former team and future team didn’t play in Stratford’s first season back in the private school association.

Fitzpatrick has no idea what his baseball record is. Unofficially, based on incomplete information submitted to MaxPreps, he won more than 60 percent of his games as Westfield’s head baseball coach, including a 32-5 season and state title in 2011.

Now, he’ll have a well-rested phone, and be less than 10 minutes from work. That honey-do list will grow.

Howell has change of heart, withdraws from Twiggs County job

For the third time this offseason, Twiggs County is in the market for a head football coach.

Twiggs County picks experienced Howell as head coach

Less than a week after being approved by the county board of education as the new head coach, Tommy Howell resigned from the job, telling the school on Monday.

“I just had a change of heart,” Howell said. “Nothing about (Twiggs County). Twiggs was very supportive. They were willing to do what it took to take the program to the next level.

“But I just didn’t have a peace about it, and leaving my daughter at GMC. I want to spend her senior year with her.”

Haleigh Howell was a soccer player at GMC and now plays tennis, as well as being a cheerleader.

“It was lingering,” Howell said. “I was hoping (Monday) when I met with the kids and saw the school and (walked) around and everything, that everything was going to kind of relieve, I would be relieved.

“But when I left, I knew it wasn’t the right move for me.”

He’ll return to GMC, and will talk this week to new head coach Bobby Rhoades about his status with the football program.