New Northside head coach Williams bringing core values, consistency, continuity, and confidence to major rebuilding job
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
Tuesday was a day of extremes for Daniel “Boone” Williams.
While the Houston County Board of Education held a regular meeting with an agenda that included voting on whether to approve Williams as Northside’s new head coach, he wasn’t waiting by the phone or computer for word.
He was at services for his 16-year-old niece, who died recently after a battle with leukemia. That’s where he was when the board emerged from executive sessions and approved Langston Hughes’ second head coach as Northside’s 12 th head coach.
“I know the tradition, I know the rich history of Northside.””
“Her service started at 1 (p.m.), the same time the board meeting started,” Williams said Tuesday night in a conversation with The Central Georgia Sports Report. “Gosh. It was definitely troubling. Closing one chapter, opening another, that’s how I looked at (Tuesday). That kind of kept me positive.”
Williams didn’t get the official news of his new job until a little after 4 p.m. when Northside posted the announcement on Facebook. His phone and email were already gasping from exhaustion, word having gotten out Monday of the impending move.
But he’s wasting no time getting to work on Green Street. He showed up on Wednesday with plans to be in town all week, meeting with players, coaches, administrators and anybody else who can help him start the rebuilding.
And he’ll need plenty of help.
The enthusiasm has been building for a few weeks as word of his interest in the job spread, but enthusiasm won’t return the Eagles to their former glory, and it won’t be a quick fix.
Northside has had more losing seasons – four – in the last six seasons than since its infancy, in the late 1960s. The Eagles went from 1971 to 2018 with only one losing season, 3-7 in 1991 followed by a quarterfinal appearance in 1992.
Kevin Kinsler went from 9-6 and a finals appearance in 2018 to 3-7 a year later, and gone. Chad Alligood was 5-6 in his first season, and went 16-9 in the next two seasons before resigning and taking the athletics director job at Jones County.
Ben Bailey was Peach County’s offensive coordinator in 2022, and was very much a surprise hire of then-principal Markeeta Clayton. Despite stints at Peach County, Lee County, and Houston County, he was unable to garner much support even before his first game, a 33-21 win over Jones County in the Macon Touchdown Club’s Middle Georgia Classic to open the 2023 season.
The 2-0 start slid into a 4-7 season that included a skirmish after losing 2016 at Class AAA Crisp County that led to suspensions and dismissals. Northside opened 2024 with two wins, and lost the next eight.
On the south side of Atlanta, Williams began keeping an eye on the goings on in Warner Robins, and chatted with Alligood, against whom he was 2-0.
“He said it was a good job, and ‘If you ever thought about it, you would do well down here,’” Williams said. “When it came up later in the season, I was kind of back and forth on it.”
Williams’ as a Northside possibility teased a portion of its fan base, the one not obsessed with hiring a Northside-connected person, but there was speculation about whether Williams could take the job because he (reportedly) wasn’t certified, which could have been an issue in Houston County.
“I never had a situation with my certification,” said Williams, who turns 41 on Saturday. “I’m certified through the Georgia PSC in nine different subjects. We’re good to go.”
Then there was the reputation at Northside of having a stronger-than-normal preference for Northside people as coaches, a preference fairly common in Houston County in general.
Indeed, former Veterans head coach Josh Ingram was promoted. Perry hired Kevin Smith from Houston County. Bailey had three seasons at Houston County.
Houston County head coaches
Houston County
Jeremy Edwards
Two seasons, 27-11
Northside
Boone Williams
First year; 63-17 at Hughes (3 region titles, 1 state championship)
Perry
Kevin Smith,
Eight seasons, 68-30, 4 region titles, 1 state championship
Veterans
Steve DeVoursney
First year; 129-41 at Griffin (3 region titles, 1 state championship), 53-27 at Cairo (2 region titles), 182-68 overall
Warner Robins
Shane Sams
Two seasons, 16-8, 1 region title; 0-10 at Centennial (2019)
Westfield (GIAA)
Chad Campbell
Two seasons, 14-9; 168-38 at Peach County (10 region titles, 1 state championship)
Shane Sams is a Warner Robins graduate who was the Demons’ offensive coordinator in 2017 and 2018, when the program began its best run in Demon history with six straight trips to state championship games. He was on Alligood’s staff for a year in 2020 at Northside.
The last public school head coach hired in Houston County with no Houston County connection was Erik Soliday at Perry (2013-14). The last such coach hired at Northside with no county connections? Don Elam spent only 1981 at Northside, going 7-3 in succeeding Conrad Nix.
So, the hiring of Williams covers the bases of a splash, bombshell, surprise, shocker. Way outside of the Eagle and county box. He understands that there’ll be a transition for the adults in the audience, but he knows what he’s getting into.
“I’ve definitely heard that,” Williams said. “I know that the whole Central Georgia/Warner Robins area, they kind of hire from within and bump up. I appreciate (principal) Dr. (Dustin) Dykes and (athletics director) Mark Jones for taking a chance on me and just giving me an opportunity to venture out and come get me from metro Atlanta.
“I know exactly what I’m walking into, and I appreciate the opportunity. I’m going to cherish this moment, and we’re going to put our best foot forward. I have been a fan of Northside. When I first started coaching, at Creekside High School, we went down to the Mac. We lost. So I’ve always understood what it was.
“I coached against Marquez Ivory, Nick Bass, Tijuan Green. I was very familiar with them. I know the tradition, I know the rich history of Northside.”
As a player at Creekside, Williams visited the Mac in 2004 and lost 34-21 to Warner Robins in the first round of the playoffs. As a head coach, he’s taken down the Eagles twice, 27-0 in the first round of the 2020 playoffs and 48-7 in the 2021 quarterfinals.
The new geography is part of the challenge Williams was looking for. Amid the observers’ online debates about whether Williams would be interested was a perception that Langston Hughes was in an affluent area while Northside’s part of Warner Robins has digressed in some facests from what it was 15 years ago.
Williams said that Hughes is the middle of a generally affluent geographic area, but that nearby Westlake, Creekside, and Banneker – all less than seven miles from Hughes – are more suburban.
“Langston Hughes is a Title One school,” Williams said. “It’s the same Title One school that Northside is. Most of the affluent people, those kids go to Westlake. Hughes is its own community.
“In that whole pocket, we don’t have a feeder system, so there are so many things and reasons why Northside made sense.”
He now enters a county of six high schools – five public and one private – with four head coaches who have won state GHSA championships: Perry’s Kevin Smith (2023), Williams (2022 at Hughes), new Veterans head coach Steve DeVoursney (2013 at Griffin) and Westfield’s Chad Campbell (2009 at Peach County).
And he joins a region, GHSA Region 2-5A, with the 2023 6A state champ (Thomas County Central) and 5A state champ (Coffee), and 2017-18 6A state champ (Lee County). Houston County has reached the quarterfinals in two of the last three seasons.
“There’s great coaching in the state of Georgia,” Williams said. “But I think if you go and do a circle around what’s in Middle Georgia, it’s great coaching right there.
“The core values we come together with as a staff and stick to, the kids buy into those, and that’s when you have great teams.””
“And I will bet anybody anywhere that Region 2-5A is the toughest-coached region in the state.”
Willliams graduated from Creekside in 2002, and went to Benedict, a Division II program in Columbia, South Carolina, his career at outside linebacker cut short by three torn ACLs. He started coaching at Creekside right out of college. Hughes’ first season was 2009, and he made that move in 2012, helping the program to its 10 winning seasons, reaching three championship games in the last four seasons as head coach, succeeding Willie Cannon, who remained as the school’s athletics director.
Williams is a divorced father of four, whose oldest is a pitcher at Tuskegee who never played football, and whose second-youngest is “definitely a girly girl.” He also has a 16-year-old and adopted 4-year-old.
There will be assorted family discussions over the coming months, but Williams is ready to dive in.
“I know the tradition,” he said. “I know the rich history of Northside, so to see a program kind of where it was and try to … I’ll tell anybody. I bet on myself when it comes to this stuff. I do a great job of coaching what we have. At my previous place, I had limited resources. At Northside, I have what seems like unlimited resources.”
There are no doubt adjustments to be made, from perhaps more fan support – and intense message-board scrutiny - to go with a program having gone from the 2018 state-title game to record losses, to an epic rivalry, to less traffic – maybe - to and from work. But Williams is confident that what worked at Hughes will work at Northside.
It’s not fancy nor complicated, starting with continuity and consistency.
“I think that I put a great staff together,” he said. “They believed in my vision, and we stayed consistent in our approach every week until it became second nature. I didn't waver on my core values, my football IQ with my coaches.
“We kind of stayed the same course and eventually the kids got on board. The core values we come together with as a staff and stick to, the kids buy into those, and that’s when you have great teams.”