GHSF Daily asked Georgia head coaches to answer these four questions. We'll report from a different head coach each day.
Alan Chadwick, Marist
1. Who is/was the most influential person in your coaching career? "There have been so many, but I'd have to go back to the coach I had in high school [at Decatur], Franklin Brooks. He was just so intense and competitive and he loved the game so much that you just couldn't help but soak up all of those qualities from him. He coached my older brothers and was good friends with my dad, so he was just a big influence behind the whole family. [Brooks was a star player at Atlanta's old O'Keefe High and later Georgia Tech and was the MVP of the 1956 Sugar Bowl. He was an assistant coach at Tech under Pepper Rodgers when he died in 1977 from lung cancer at age 44.]
2. Who is the best Georgia player you ever faced? "Joe Burns. We've gone against a lot of good ones, but Joe was the one that stands out because he was such a big-play kind of guy. It didn't matter how many people we had around him, he found a way to make the play."
3. What is the best team you ever faced as a coach? "Well, I think this Buford group this year is pretty darn good. And then I think it was '06 when we played Northside Warner Robins down there for the state championship. The Buford team, they are just so strong on defense. They don't stay blocked for long. Northside was just a very explosive team. We hung with them a little better than Buford, but then they just took it to another level." [Marist lost to both teams 30-6.]
4. If you were Gary Phillips, the new head of the GHSA, what would be the first rule that you would try to change? "Holding, holding, holding. Did I say that emphatically and loud enough? We're not playing on Sundays. In high school, the hands are supposed to be inside the frame. But they let them get away with it. They're letting them get jerseys, turn defenders, pull them down. It's getting to where they could call it on every down. I say that because that's not the style [of offense] we run, so we don't do that type thing. We're not [blocking] man on man, but more angles and blocking below the waist."
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