Kareem Reid, who won three region titles in his three seasons at Westlake in Fulton County, was approved Monday afternoon as Griffin’s football coach.
The Griffin-Spalding County Board of Education voted 4-0.
‘’Griffin is a traditionally rich program and a town starving to get back to the mountain top,’’ Reid told AJC.com. “It’s an opportunity to take over a program in a city where football is of the utmost importance. I couldn’t pass it up.’’
Reid’s record at Westlake was 27-10. His Lions reached the Class AAAAAA semifinals in 2016. Reid previously was head coach at Coconut Creek in Florida. His teams there were 16-14 without a losing season at a program that had gone 1-19 over the previous two campaigns. Reid, a native of south Florida, is a former defensive lineman at Central Florida.
Reid will be replacing Antonio Andrews, who became head coach at Woodland of Stockbridge.
Griffin has gone 45-14 the past five seasons, or since its 2013 Class AAAA championship won under Steven DeVoursney, now at Cairo. Reid will be the school’s third coach since.
Reid is the latest of several head coaches to move on from south Fulton schools despite success.
Creekside, Hughes, Westlake, Banneker and Tri-Cities have seen 20 head coaches, an average of four per school, since 2010, and no current coach has been on the job longer than the past two seasons. The most stable, Willie Cannon of Hughes, retired this off-season after missing the playoffs for only the first time since 2012. Mario Allen has stepped down at Banneker after leading the school to its first-ever region title. All but Tri-Cities have won at least one region title in that time.
Westlake, the largest of those schools, is now one of the top unfilled positions in metro Atlanta.
‘’It was a fun run for sure,’’ Reid said of his time at Westlake. “I had a great experience and grew as a coach and a man during my three years. The program was in good shape when we found it, and it’s in great shape now.’’
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