Former Northside head coach, Jones County athletics directorAlligood announces retirement
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
In December of 2022, Chad Alligood went to social media to announce his resignation as Northside’s head football coach and then a day later to announce that he was Jones County’s new athletics director.
Thursday night, he was back on X/Twitter with another notable revelation: he was retiring from athletics.
Alligood just turned 50 on Dec. 30, and is a few years short of the normal 30-year benchmark for full retirement benefits in the state system.
If the retirement sticks – and many first retirements of coaches and athletics directors don’t – it’ll end a long career and a few interesting recent years.
His resignation announcement was a surprise to outsiders, but not as much as the one about his new job 30 hours later, that he had already accepted the athletics director job at Jones County.
Alligood approved as Northside’s new head coach and AD
Another Central Georgia coaching bomb drops: Alligood resigns at Northside
That lasted at little bit more than two years, until his abrupt resignation on Jan. 31, after a tumultuous called board meeting in which he and head football coach Mike Chastain – who resigned the same day – countered assorted disagreements with some community members and Jones County fans.
Alligood defending his decisions in running the athletics department and managing its finances. A little more than a week later, WMGT-TV 41NBC reported that the Gray Police were investigating possible misuse of funds by the Jones County Touchdown Club.
Alligood’s brother in law is John Milledge Academy head coach and athletics director J.T. Wall, and assorted speculation the past few years has connected them working together in some form.
Alligood went 21-15 as head coach at Northside, his dream job.
“I think my love for Northside High School,” Alligood told the The Central Georgia Sports Report after getting the job in January of 2020. “Somebody might could come in there and talk better than me or have a better resume than me.
“But nobody was gonna come in there with the love for Northside High School that I have. Nobody was gonna come in there and have been through Coach (Conrad) Nix) and Coach Kinsler …”
Every one of the Eagles’ 15 losses under Alligood came to ranked teams in classes 5A (Jones County, Warner Robins), 6A (Houston County, Thomas Couty Central, Lee County, Marist, Hughes, and Richmond Hill), and 7A (Colquitt County).
With Alligood as offensive coordinator, covering three periods, Northside went 104-33. As per message-board complaints, there was a faction that wanted more passing in the offense – even when the Eagles went to three state championship games in a five-year period, winning in 2014.
Alligood followed the start of his coaching career at John Milledge with his first stint at Northside, under Conrad Nix. He returned to alma mater Wilkinson County for a year before coaching at Perry and FPD, coming back to Northside in 2010 when Kevin Kinsler took over.
Alligood’s head coaching debut came at Washington-Wilkes for two years, going 10-12 in 2017-18. He returned to Northside as the offensive coordinator for that 2019 season, the Eagles’ 183 points their fewest since 1991 season.