By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          The countdown was clearly on, 47 years of teaching and coaching coming to an end, and Paul Brooks expected to just continue with it.

          Then one day last week, he was summoned by some colleagues to another room in the building at John Milledge Academy.

          “The seniors were up there practicing or whatever,” Brooks said. “And the next thing I knew, they were reading off a few things, and, uh, they were dedicating the annual to me. I said, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’ It caught me off guard.”

          Impressive was how well the secret was kept. (Video of the ceremony and Brooks’ speech is here)

          “My wife said she knew for about a month or two, so she had to keep her secret,” Brooks said. “Three of those senior girls, I coached them back when they were like eighth grade, and they all knew it, too, and they kept it a secret, too.

          “I reckon this thing is real, you know?”

          Brooks might be surprised again on Thursday even when “this thing” does become as real as gets, John Milledge hosting a drop-in meet and greet from 4:30-6:30 p.m. at the Trojan Center to commemorate Brooks’ nearly five decades in education.

          And soon after, Brooks will retire – he’s quite sure it’ll stick, unlike some “retirements” out there – full-time to the home he’s lived in for nearly 40 years on the family property he’s been on his whole life, in Gordon barely a mile from the Jones County line.

          Near where it all began, and where Brooks hardly strayed far from.

          He attended Wilkinson County High for three years and graduated in 1971 from Gordon-Ivey, a private school that was closed in 1981. After graduating from Georgia College, his career started right back at Wilkinson County under David Moore.

          “He was my mentor,” Brooks said. “Winningest basketball coach in Wilkinson County, before the schools consolidated. Charleston Veazey was my football coach. Two of the best.”

          A year later, he was at his alma mater as head basketball coach, and baseball coach. And there, at a school that would be closed only a few years later, began a longstanding and still active relationship with one Barney Hester.

          “Barney and I had basketball, football, baseball, track, tennis golf,” he said. “We did it all.”

          It was a lean operation. Hester joked during one game that Brooks was the next sub to go in.

          “We’ve come a long way since the Gordon-Ivey days,” Brooks laughed.

          Brooks and Hester had to move on when the school closed in 1981. Brooks headed to Tattnall as head baseball coach and assistant basketball coach, Hester to Georgia Southern for a year as a  graduate assistant for Erk Russell.

          A year later, things sure changed. Hester took over the Tattnall football program, for one.

Richard Reid, who would become a local private school coaching legend, was handling both basketball teams at Tattnall, with Brooks as an assistant for both.

          “He said, ‘What do you want, boys or girls?’” Brooks said. “I said, ‘Coach, you know I want the boys.’ He said, ‘Good, because I want the girls.’”

          Brooks gave up baseball, and joined Hester’s football staff.

          Some disagreements nearly two decades with Tattnall’s headmaster at the time emerged, and Brooks thought it wise to seek other employment. He landed at Stratford for three years, coaching girls basketball while John Hilburn handled the boys, having just taken over from Grady Smith.

          Brooks succeeded Danny Howell at Stratford, and Howell is now the head of school at Brentwood in Sandersville, where former Stratford boys head coach Jamie Dickey was recently named to take over the girls program.

          A change up top at Tattnall – one Barney Hester had moved up to the top spot - and some disagreements at Stratford led to Brooks’ return to Trojan Trail.

          Perhaps inevitably, another round of differing opinions from some folks led to Brooks’ second departure from Tattnall in 2012.

          “It was just one of those things,” Brooks said. “We got beat out in the state championship that year. I had DeAndre Smelter. That was my last game, too.”

          He said he left both places with “good feelings”. Brooks reunited with a number of friendly faces from Tattnall a few weeks ago when Smelter was inducted into the Macon Sports Hall of Fame, taking a group picture with Hester, Smelter, current Tattnall head baseball coach Jordan Brooks, and former coaches Jeff Ratliff and Joey Hiller, among others.

          “I didn’t burn any bridges anywhere I left,” Brooks said. “That’s just kind of the way I am. It’s all about the kids to me. It’s not about parents and show and stuff like that. I like to see kids work hard and develop and play the game the way it’s supposed to (be played).”

          After a year at GMC Prep in Milledgeville, assisting in football while coaching middle school baseball and football, he moved north to just outside Milledgeville to John Milledge.

          “I’ve been here for 12 years,” he said. “Heck of a ride.”

          A ride he didn’t quite expect, knowing very little about his new – and final - job.

          “When I came here, I had no idea,” Brooks said. “I didn’t know a whole lot of people.

          “We always called them at Tattnall Square ‘the baby Trojans,’ Then when I got here, that was the motivation I used. ‘I’m coming from Tattnall Square. We were always the big Trojans.” And John Milledge was the baby Trojans.

          “We got a last laugh when I was here,” he said. “We beat (Tattnall) three or four times in football. We’ve won our share.”

          He started out at John Milledge as a middle school coach, then took over varsity girls basketball for five years. According to a story at the time in the Union-Recorder, he had 611 wins, notable because that’s as close to a detailed account of his record as you’ll get, certainly from him, and season records online are hard to find.

          In his final season, 2019, he led the Trojan girls to their first region title since 1994.

          “Then we got upset in the first round by Frederica, which had two twins girls that went and played at the University of Cincinnati,” he said. “That’s the way that goes.”

          And Brooks coached middle school through this year.

          The feeling of home at Tattnall that Brooks expected to last longer was immediate with the Trojans in Milledgeville.

          “That’s what we have so good here,” said Brooks, head basketball coach for five state runner-up teams overall. “I just can’t get over the way the chemistry is with our guys here. It’s so good. (Athletes) buy into our programs. When they buy in, everything goes real smooth.”

          Adding to the familiarity: Brooks has watched John Milledge’s football team turn into something of a dynasty, a 62-game winning streak coming to an end last December in the GIAA Class 3A championship game.

          “One of the best things our coaches do here is technique,” he said. “Our kids are not the biggest, strongest, fastest, but they’re probably the most technique guys you ever seen in your life.”

          That philosophy and the resulting success brings the start of Brooks’ career with Hester and the end of his career with football head coach J.T. Wall together. Brooks has been part of the John Milledge football program in some fashion since he arrived.

          Brooks was connected, unofficially, with 275 of Hester’s 306 wins at Tattnall, and almost all of Wall’s 150 wins at John Milledge.

          “It’s like all those years at Tattnall Square,” Brooks said. “They know what we’re running. We’re just gonna do it better. We’re gonna run it repetition, repetition, repetition. That’s what (Hester) did. The other teams had to adjust to us.”

          Brooks found John Milledge to be the right place at the right time, with familiarity despite the lack of familiarity.

          “Once I got here, it was so much like Tattnall Square, it wasn’t even funny,” he said. “I’m talking about the people that you deal with and the coaches you deal with. I told my wife it’s just like Tattnall Square to me. It seemed like the same outfit.

          “We just hit it off really well. They made it fun for me.”

          Now, the fun changes. Brooks and his wife of 22 years Debbie will spend more time with four children overall – son Durant was a standout at Tattnall and Georgia Tech who had an NFL career and last year joined the Macon Sports Hall of Fame - and eight grandchildren.

          Brooks estimated that he won around 670 games as a varsity head basketball coach, boys and girls, in roughly 30 years as a head coach. Along the way, he was connected to 16 football state championship and nine second-place finishes.

          “That’s a lot of times to be in a state championship,” he said.

          Brooks will set aside the coaching wardrobe for that of a golfer, fisherman, and budding pickleball player. He’ll listen if somebody calls about coaching, and is available should anybody at John Milledge need a hand short-term.

          Until then, he’ll deal with any honey-do list as well as a wanna-do list. Both have been growing for 47 years.