Cancer didn’t stop him from coaching football. He added baseball, too.
ATHENS — David Perno hobbles from his golf cart to the bench at Clarke Central’s football field and sits to watch practice start.
The head coach rebuilt his alma mater’s football program with the same fiery leadership that made him one of the most successful head coaches in UGA baseball history. But these days, the 59-year-old can’t stand through a whole practice, much less yell at someone.
Thirty-four years of coaching and two forms of cancer will do that to you.
Perno has been battling cancer in his blood and his right lung since January. Two sections of his lung were surgically removed in March, bringing fatigue and a violent cough when he overexerts himself.
It’s a midsummer Tuesday morning, the start of Perno’s longest day of the week. He’ll coach football in the morning before spending the afternoon with his first baseball team as Clarke Central’s new coach.
Perno didn’t step back from coaching after his diagnosis. He doubled down.
“I was like, ‘Who knows where this is going to go? And I’ve still got a lot to offer from a coaching standpoint,’” Perno said. “(After the diagnosis,) I lived in denial for two weeks. I was like, ‘There ain’t no way.’”
Then the medication — which doctors believe gives Perno a 78% chance of clearing his lung — started draining his energy.
“(Before the diagnosis,) I would go and go and go, and after three or four hours of sleep, I’d be good,” Perno said. “Now, I can get five or six (hours) because of all the medication and everything, and I take naps. I’ve got to lay down.”
Clarke Central’s football field and weight room are separated by a hill and a tall flight of stadium steps. Perno used to walk up and down the hill without a problem. He rides a golf cart now.
10:30 a.m.: Assistant coaches bark instructions through the first 20 minutes of practice as Perno quietly observes from the bench.
The first round of drills finishes, players stop for a water break and Perno stands up. He shuffles around the field, pulling individual coaches and players aside for small corrections — the kinds of things he used to jump on right as they happened.
Jack Mangel was Perno’s first quarterback at Clarke Central in 2016. Now one of Perno’s assistant coaches in football and baseball, Mangel sees a very different demeanor than Perno had 10 years ago.
“I remember coach Perno was giving them refs hell back when I was playing,” Mangel said. “Yelling, cussing at us the whole time. It’s kind of hard to see him like this, but I know he’s battling through it.
“He’s not as vocal anymore. The cool thing is, when he speaks, those kids listen, man.”
Clarke Central moves on to special teams, Perno’s time to run practice. Assistant coaches step aside, and Perno hoarsely instructs his players through punt, field goal and kickoff drills.
The drills end, and Perno playfully picks on one of his players for a bad rep he had earlier in the day.
“I swear, why does coach Perno have to see everything?” the player asked him.
“Man, I just got done telling you I don’t miss s---,” Perno replied.
Perno is coughing more as he speaks. Time to sit down again.
11:15 a.m.: The second half of practice is a lot like the first. Perno coaches in quiet, one-on-one conversations. It’s a dance between his lungs and his heart, catching his breath and correcting his team as needed.
His quiet interjection is needed near the end of practice after a defensive back gives up a touchdown and an assistant coach yells at him for the mistake.
The player yells back, and a shouting match starts on the field. Perno hops off the bench quicker than he has all day, pulls the player aside and defuses the situation.
Practice resumes.
It’s a microcosm of Perno’s shift from drill sergeant to quiet leader. Perno only made the change because he had to, but he figures learning how to coach without the ability to yell is good for him.
“I don’t need to lose my cool. These kids are a good group,” Perno said. “I just whisper in another coach’s ear and say, ‘Get his ass.’ So, fortunately, my coaches will do some of my dirty work now.”
11:50 a.m.: Perno skips the golf cart and tries to walk back up to his office after practice. He makes it to the second-to-last stadium step before sitting down to catch his breath.
Perno looks over the field as some players clean up while others do extra drills.
The wind swirls as he sits atop Billy Henderson Stadium, named after his former head coach, who led Clarke Central to all three of its state titles. Perno was a senior fullback for Henderson’s last championship team in 1985, now a relic of the program’s long-gone glory days.
Clarke Central continues to compete for region championships — Perno has four in the last seven years — but the Gladiators haven’t made it past the state quarterfinals since 2009.
“I don’t want it to sound like an excuse, but we’re going to have a tough time competing against Carrollton, competing against Buford, Gainesville, any of these city schools bringing everybody in and anyone that they can get to,” Perno said. “It’s different. It’s tough.”
Clarke Central’s local competition is also stronger than it was when Perno played. North Oconee, Jefferson, Athens Academy and Prince Avenue Christian have become perennial championship contenders within 20 miles of Clarke Central’s campus.
The program has improved significantly under Perno. The Gladiators won their first playoff game in five years in Perno’s first season.
The culture shifted in 2019, Perno’s fourth season. He said Clarke Central played more selflessly and cut down on personal fouls. The Gladiators finished the regular season with a region-winning upset of then-No. 1-ranked Buford.
“The attitude, everything changed,” Perno said. “Kids started appreciating things more often and making better grades.”
Perno said the 2019 season rejuvenated his love for high school football. It was particularly cathartic considering how his last coaching position, the head baseball job at UGA, ended.
Perno said he was asked to resign his position at UGA in 2013 without warning, despite having more College World Series appearances than any coach in program history. Perno never saw it coming.
“I don’t want to come off bitter. I’m not,” Perno said. “I’ve forgiven. I just can’t forget.”
Perno always wanted to get back into college baseball, but the right opportunity never came, so he kept building at Clarke Central.
“We had a 3.0 (team) GPA this year, which is insane,” Perno said. “We were lucky if we had a 2.0 when I first got here, so it’s really neat to see how far we’ve come.”
Friday nights remind him a lot more of 1985 than they did when he took over.
“That whole game-day experience is what has kept me doing it,” Perno said. “The Friday night lights, the whole community can rally around it, and I know how much it means to these kids.”
12:45 p.m.: Perno takes the short walk from his office to the baseball field for his second practice of the day. He doesn’t have to climb any stairs or hills.
Most of his players are warming up when he arrives. They greet Perno with a tone that suggests he had coached them for years rather than a spontaneous handful of games last season.
Perno started coaching Clarke Central baseball in March when former coach Jerry Boatner stepped away for a surgery. Perno knew he had cancer in his blood but didn’t know about his lung when he accepted the temporary position.
Perno’s first game was a region matchup at Apalachee. The Gladiators had lost to the Wildcats two days earlier.
Clarke Central struggled through the first five innings before clinching a 5-2 win in extra innings. The Gladiators won five of their next seven games, including another notable region road win at Winder-Barrow.
Perno had to step out for a few weeks in March to take care of his lung, but his love for coaching baseball was reignited.
“During that stretch, I enjoyed it, and they only had one senior, so all the kids were coming back,” Perno said. “When I got in that dugout and I was working with the pitchers and the hitters, I was just, like, ‘I want to do that again.’
“And then I get diagnosed with all this s---, and I was, like, ‘Even more reason why I dove in. I’ve got to do it before I die.’”
1 p.m.: Baseball practice starts, and the differences from football practice are stark. Perno calls his infielders to him — eight players, in total — and explains their first drill of the day.
Perno paces around the drill and corrects mistakes. He doesn’t need to yell over other coaches, and all his players can hear him at once.
Perno is running practice.
“He’s a little more hands-on with baseball,” said Hudson Welter, who plays both sports for Perno. “If he sees something, he’ll point it out right then and there with baseball, and then with football, he’ll kind of pull you to the side and say something about it.”
Perno then takes a bucket of balls and a bat to home plate. He hits ground balls to his players for a few minutes before the coughing returns.
Perno calls for Mangel, the only other coach on the field, to finish the drill. He hands the bat over, repositions himself behind his players and keeps coaching.
“It’s great to see him in his natural element and to see how passionate he is about it and to know that he can still coach it up with the best of them,” Mangel said. “I know he wishes he could do a little more, but to still see him out there in the infield and getting low and hitting (ground balls), that’s pretty cool to see.”
The drill finishes, and Perno finds a seat in the corner of the dugout. Baseball practice moves slower, giving him more time to recover before the next segment.
Perno said he loves football, but if he had to pick one sport for this chapter of his life, he’d be in the dugout.
“I always wanted to coach football, and I got to at a good place for plenty of years,” Perno said. “So, yeah, I think if I’ve got to pick one, I think I would go the baseball route at this point.”
1:45 p.m.: Practice ends a few minutes early. Many players keep hitting with Mangel as Perno limps to his car.
He’s headed home for a four-hour nap before dinner. And soon after eating, he’ll go back to bed.
But Perno did it — the longest day of his week is complete.
“I feel like I’m still effective even though I’m not constantly yelling and pushing them,” Perno said. “I’m just having to do it a little different way, but I kind of like it.
“Before if you were always chewing them, it’s tough to put down your arm and talk to them because they get in their feelings bad, man. So now, I’m just coming in as the guy that’s loving them, and it’s pretty cool.”
