Jeff Herron, the only coach to win football state championships at three Georgia high schools, has retired.
Herron compiled a record of 287-52 in 27 seasons as a Georgia head coach and won state titles at Oconee County (1999), Camden County (2003, 2008-09) and Grayson (2016). He left Grayson after one season to become coach at T.L. Hanna in Anderson, S.C., and was 11-1 and 14-1 in two seasons at a program that was 6-5 the season before he arrived and largely mediocre the previous decade.
T.L. Hanna reached South Carolina’s Class AAAAA championship game in 2018. Herron’s final record is 312-54. He began his coaching career in the mid-1980s as an assistant at McEachern and also was head coach at Wheeler, Walton, Cedar Shoals and Prince Avenue Christian.
"Jeff Herron retiring is like Nick Saban retiring. He has that kind of resume," T.L. Hanna athletic director John Cann told the Anderson Independent. "He deserved to go out on his terms, we have the upmost respect for him and it's been a pleasure working with him."
Jason Tone, T.L. Hanna’s offensive coordinator, was named Herron’s replacement. Tone was a longtime assistant to Herron at Camden County and was head coach at Worth County in Georgia for four seasons (2013-16).
Herron is the third former Georgia coach with multiple state titles to retire this offseason. Others are Calhoun’s Hal Lamb, who won three state titles, and Clinch County’s Jim Dickerson, who won five.
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