New Gainesville football coach Santavious Bryant gets significant salary bump
Gainesville will pay Santavious Bryant a significant amount more than he was making as the head coach at nationally ranked Grayson.
Bryant is set to earn a salary of $120,602.16, according to salary data obtained via an open-records request by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Bryant’s total package is broken down into a base salary of $71,370.79, with a coaching supplement of $42,000 and extended-day pay worth $7,231.37.
Bryant’s contract also includes incentive pay worth 5% of his $42,000 coaching supplement for every round of the playoffs that Gainesville advances. That’s essentially a $2,100 bonus per playoff win, meaning a state championship run would pay an extra $10,500.
Bryant’s salary at Grayson during the 2024 season — which Grayson ended with a state title — was $74,871.05, according to Open Georgia, which doesn’t list salary package itemizations. During the 2023 season at Grayson, Bryant made $69,217.68.
One of 21 city school systems in Georgia, Gainesville is known to offer competitive salaries to coaches. Former Gainesville football coach Josh Niblett, who was hired from Alabama powerhouse Hoover in 2022, had a reported salary package of $168,029.48 in 2024, according to Open Georgia. He also received a travel stipend of $1,172.42. The two years prior, his salary exceeded $170,000.
In the 2024-25 school year, Carrollton coach Joey King was the highest paid football coach in the state, earning $231,755. Rome coach and athletic director John Reid, who stepped down as coach this offseason, made $192,000. A replacement for Reid has not been named.
While public school coaches’ salaries are reported publicly, they will not include potential outside incentives, such as booster club funds.
Bryant coached defensive backs under Niblett in his first season at Gainesville in 2022. Then Grayson hired Bryant the following offseason, and he led the Rams to a combined 37-5 record with a 15-0 state championship campaign in 2024.
When Niblett told Gainesville athletic director Adam Lindsey that he was taking an assistant coaching role at the University of Colorado, Lindsey quickly pivoted to Bryant.
“Coach Bryant was certainly on a very short list of those that I would make a phone call to almost immediately if a situation came up,” Lindsey said. “So when I heard this was a possibility with coach Niblett, he was my first phone call.”
Bryant said he made a tough decision to leave Grayson for Gainesville, returning to a program and community he loves. The decision was relatively fast — he was announced as Gainesville’s head coach less than a week after he was offered the job.
Lindsey remembered a tone of excitement in Bryant’s voice when he called and offered.
“Just being Gainesville, I’d hope we’d get that from anybody,” Lindsey said. “But just having somebody that we’ve already got a relationship with, the fact that we kind of had conversations about if this were to happen, this would obviously kind of help.”
Bryant was 28 years old and had never been a coordinator or head coach when Grayson hired him. He credits a lot of his growth as a head coach to his last three years coaching the Rams.
“I’m forever grateful for Grayson to provide me that opportunity to get that platform to learn and grow, because they didn’t have to take a chance on me, and they did, and it worked out for both of us,” Bryant told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Jan. 8. “So I’ve learned and grown a bunch just in my everyday process of how I do things on a daily basis.
“Obviously, when you become a head coach, you’re so much more than just a position coach as far as one group. Now I’m impacting the kids, the adults, the community. My impact is so much greater, and I have to learn how to navigate those things and be able to make sure that I’m doing it in the right way that’s going to lead us to success.”
About the Author
Jack Leo is a sports writer and reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Jack worked for the AJC throughout his four years studying journalism and sports media at Georgia State University and the University of Georgia. He's now focused on telling stories in the grassroots: bringing comprehensive coverage of high school sports for AJC Varsity.
