Today's interviewee is Rance Gillespie, coach of Hart County. Gillespie's Bulldogs are 2-0 and ranked for the first time since 2016. Gillespie was the head coach at Peach County during state championship seasons in 2005 and 2006 and also has coached at Banks County, Valdosta and Georgia Southern.
Rance Gillespie, Hart County head coach
1. Your team started the season 0-2 during your first two years in Hartwell. You're 2-0 this season by beating teams that beat you in 2018. Have you turned a corner? "I don't know if you ever get to that point, but I do think our kids have invested and put in a lot of work. When I say that, it's not just from this summer. It's been a two-year process, and a lot of kids have been in the program all three years we've been here. They're starting to understand schemes on offense, defense and special teams and they're beginning to execute better. The things that we've done from a year-round perspective have paid great dividends. They now approach their business in the right way. They try to focus on the task at hand. They're growing into a football team that's mature enough to try to be good on Monday afternoon and not just Friday night. Once you start getting that culture going and you're competitive at practice every day, things are going to head in a positive direction."
2. Who is the best player that you've coached? "I've been fortunate to coach a lot of great players. And there are others that may not have been as talented as others but just had the right stuff. Certainly Malcolm Mitchell would be in the conversation as one of the standouts. I had another kid at Valdosta named Todd Bradley. He was a special human being made of the right things. I've got a couple of them now that are made up of the same stuff. It's really more about the character of the kid and their makeup than just the raw athletic ability. When you're blessed to have both, then you're going to end up with a kid with the opportunity to do special things like Malcolm." [Bradley is a senior linebacker at Georgia Southern. Mitchell played at Georgia, then in the NFL until retiring this offseason because of a knee injury. He's written a children's book called "The Magician's Hat." Gillespie has coached 38 all-state players and five AJC Super 11 players including Jay Rome, Darius Dewberry and A.J. Wright and 2005 all-classification player of the year Antonio Henton.]
3. What has college coaching taught you? "The biggest difference between college and high school football is the recruiting piece. Once you get to the grass, football is football. There are more similarities than people realize. With the time coaches are allotted with the kids over the summer, it allows us to do a lot. It allows us to implement very similar schemes. I wouldn't dare say that it's a simpler game at the high school level. From the recruiting aspect, though, it's light years difference."
4. Any chance you'd return to college football, or are you in high school ball for good? "I'm getting toward the end of my career, and I'm extremely happy where I am. God placed me here for a reason. That's about all I can say. I'm originally from Rabun County, and that's a nice benefit of being here. My wife is from there, too. But if you ask me where I'm from, it's Hart County. It's home now, and I'm excited about that."
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