By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

 

          It was quite a Thursday morning for Paul Carroll.

          His first task was telling the Howard football team that he had resigned last month as the Huskies’ head coach.

          Then he waited for word of his next job to come out, Carroll having accepted the head coach position at Stratford, ending about two weeks of speculation that he was going to be the Eagles’ new man.

          The school posted the announcement on social media a little after 9 a.m.

“Coach Carroll is a leader who brings intensity, accountability, and fire to every program he has been involved in,” Stratford athletics director Barry Veal said in the announcement. “Players love him and would run through a brick wall for him. Coach Carroll will have our students excelling in the classroom and on the field and will consistently have Stratford among the best in GIAA.”

          Carroll succeeds Chance Jones, who was let go on Dec. 1 after going 14-10 in two seasons as Stratford’s head coach, following a short stint at offensive coordinator. Stratford went 9-4 and reached the GIAA Class 4A final in his first season, losing 10-0 to St. Anne Pacelli.

          “A new chapter, that’s what it is,” Carroll said Thursday morning, while still in the Howard weight room. “The big man upstairs gave me a new chapter.”

          At some point during the fall, Carroll started thinking a little more about the future, and the long past.

          He inquired with the proper channels about how many years he had in the public school system, a normal part of the routine among those in education after a long time: Get the 30 years in for being fully vested, retain a nice retirement salary, and open the door for a second chapter of the career, or a new career.

          Carroll got the right numbers, and handed in his papers in late December to retire from public school education and as Howard’s head football coach.

          “I told everybody when I first started this thing that if I get to 30 years and am able to move on and I’m able to double-dip …,” Howard said a few weeks ago. “Whether I’m looking in Florida or Alabama or whether I’m looking here in town.”

          With 30 years in – he had some sick leave adding up to put him at 30 – Howard draws 60 percent of his two highest-salaried consecutive years, so long as he didn’t return to the state public school system.

          That opened the door for a move to Stratford after Stratford opened the door with its decision to move on from Jones.

          Former Mercer quarterback and Tattnall offensive coordinator John Russ, who just finished his first season 8-3 as head coach at GHSA Class AA Providence Christian, was among the finalists.

          Carroll shared the decision with his assistants after doing so with school and county administrators, with one major plea: Keep it quiet until he could tell the team face to face.

          That plan was for Dec. 20, but Carroll found that there were no players in school that day to tell, so he had to push it to the first day students were back.

          That day was Thursday.

          “I set ‘em down and explained to them exactly,” he said. “With kids, if you’re straight up honest with them, and that’s what I’ve always been with our guys …

          “I told em, ‘Guys this is how it works. Even high school football, it’s a business, it is. This is a business deal I decided to do that’s best for me and my family.’

          “I got an opportunity to retire, which everybody wants to do with your years of teaching, and be able to get into the private sector.”

          He’s still a little hazy about when he officially accepted the job, saying he thought about it initially when it came open, and reached out to Stratford around the holidays.

          “The biggest thing we me is my goal was to always get my 30 years in in public school and look and see if somebody would take a chance on me in the private school sector,” the 52-year-old said. “That’s what every high school coach looks at, Chad Campbell (Peach County to Westfield) and all those guys, try to double dip.

          “(Just) getting in a situation where I think they’ve got some good things going and they want to do it the right way.”

Stratford is hosting a meet-and-greet on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. in the school auditorium.

          He took a look at some possibilities of town, but a priority was trying to avoid a move. The divorced father of two – 21-year-old Makenzie and 18-year-old Kyndall – is engaged, and he and fiancé Renee Cheely have sold their homes and now have new places to look for a house.

          “My girls are here and kind of established themselves,” he said. “One established herself here, and the other one’s still off at college. This is really their home area.”

          Carroll joined Howard as defensive coordinator in 2017, in what turned out to be Barney Hester’s final year leading the Huskies. He was promoted in the spring of 2018 to succeed Hester.

          “I think Coach Hester had it turned around,” Carroll said. “I think we had it turned around and moving in the right direction.”

          Carroll, a Hardaway graduate who played linebacker at Georgia Southern in the early 1990s, came to Howard from Warner Robins, where he had been since 2010, and was the assistant head coach, defensive coordinator, and linebackers coach.

          He has also coached at Tift County, Bulloch Academy, Thomas County Central, Griffin, Northside-Columbus, McIntosh, Jones County and Greene County.

          Howard just completed its 16th season, and Carroll departs as its most successful and longest-tenured head coach. He went 28-30 in six seasons, topping the 18-32 of Hester in five seasons.

          David Cape went 0-20 after following Bobby Hughes, the former Macon County head coach who was Howard’s first coach and went 5-25 in three seasons.

          The Huskies improved under Carroll. Of the 30 losses, 13 were by 14 points or less, including a six-point playoff loss to Burke County his first season, a loss he remembers distinctly.

          “Our kids the first half felt like they could not play with Burke county,” Carroll said. “We had six turnovers, and they were ahead of us 28-0. And we came back and should’ve won the ballgame with four seconds left, on the 3-yard line, and three yard line, and we throw a pick going in to win it.

          “Those are program wins that you’ve gotta heave. We just didn’t get those kinds of wins.”

          Of those close losses, three were to ranked teams and two to higher-classification teams. COVID-19 slowed down Howard’s progress, the Huskies coming off a two-year three-year 17-15 run, covering Hester’s final year and Carroll’s first two, with consecutive playoff trips.

          Howard went 11-9 the last two seasons, but couldn’t squeeze into the playoffs, part of a tough Class AAAA region. The missed chance in 2023 still stings a bit.

          “This year, I’ll say this,” said Carroll, 12-4 against Bibb County public school teams. “There probably wasn’t but one team that was better than us, and that was Perry. Even with Spalding, they probably had better players than we did, but our kids fought their butt off. You have five turnovers …

          “We just weren’t able to beat those big teams.”

          Now he’s in charge of one of the bigger programs in the GIAA.

          “They played for the state championship two years ago,” Carroll said. “I feel like it would be a good place where you’ve got a chance year in and year out, to try to build back the old tradition they’ve had before, winning state championships.”