Phillip Ironside, who started Hillgrove’s football program in 2006 and led it to four region championships, is the new head coach at Worth County in South Georgia.
Ironside leaves a Cobb County school that ranks seventh this decade in victories in the highest classification for a rural Class AAA team that has won only three games the past three seasons.
‘’My wife and I had talked about a change, and the stories that you hear about small-town football, it’s something we wanted to try,’’ Ironside said. “The Worth job came open, we had friends who had worked there, I sent my resume, and it took off. We felt at home when we went. We look at it as a calling to do what we do.’’
Ironside was a head coach at smaller schools in Tennessee and Louisiana before coming to Georgia in 2002 to take the job at Campbell in Smyrna. He started Hillgrove’s program when the Powder Springs school opened in 2006.
In 2010, Hillgrove had just moved into the highest class and had a second-round road game at Camden County, the No. 1-ranked team and defending state champion.
Hillgrove, unranked, won 28-26 in a stunning upset.
On the way down to the Georgia coast that week, Ironside had his team stop in Dublin, whose coach, Roger Holmes, was one of Ironside’s friends from Tennessee. The visit planted a seed with Ironside about the charm of small-town football in South Georgia.
‘’We spent the night in Dublin and could just see the difference, the feel of things, how they do their facilities, how they take their football,’’ Ironside said. ‘’It’s such a different feeling.’’
Hillgrove was 109-46 in 14 seasons under Ironside. The Hawks have won 86 games in 10 seasons since moving into the highest class.
Hillgroe has produced three NFL players - Bradley Chubb, Evan Ingram and Kenyan Drake. And the state’s No. 1 consensus recruit, Clemson-bound defensive end Myles Murphy, just finished his senior season.
But despite that talent flow, Hillgrove is viewed as more of an overachiever. Hillgrove’s 22 alumni on 2019 college rosters is only the 20th-most among Class AAAAAAA schools. Ironside was 5-5 against his arch rival, McEachern.
Ironside, who has two grown children, the youngest now in college, says the timing was right.
“We’ve been at Hillgrove for 14 years,’’ he said. “Things are very stable. We have a great staff. The booster club is good. Everything is right. It’s a good time to try this and something we’ve wanted to do.’’
Worth County, about 20 miles east of Albany, won a state title in 1987 and has been a middling football program most of this century. The teams have gone 0-10 , 1-9 and 2-8 the past three seasons.
Worth County superintendent Bill Settle issued a press release Thursday night after the school board approved the hiring: ‘’“As WCSD superintendent, I am ecstatic for our kids, our school district, our community and our football program to have a coach with such a pattern of success in developing programs into highly competitive programs. Most importantly, I am even more impressed with his many references that would rather talk about his character and his ability to connect with students than what he has accomplished on the football field.’’
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