After 2025 season ended in controversy, how Brunswick plans to move forward

BRUNSWICK — Exactly nine months after arguably the worst day in program history, Brunswick football will start trying to restore its reputation.

The Pirates will kick off the 2026 season against Camden County on Friday, hoping to put controversy behind them. The last time they played at Glynn County Stadium, an on-field brawl ended a first-round playoff game with Gainesville in the third quarter.

The altercation appeared to begin when a Brunswick player ripped helmets off two Gainesville players and threw a punch after a play was finished. The fight escalated from there.

Officials canceled the rest of the game, and since Brunswick trailed 42-0 late in the game when the fight started, its season ended that night. The GHSA suspended 44 Brunswick players, fined the school $5,000 and banned the Pirates from the 2026 playoffs. Coach Garrett Grady resigned, saying the penalties were not part of his decision, and took a job coaching the offensive line at Coffee a few days later.

The postseason ban and 42 of the player suspensions were later repealed, but the impact was still felt. Brunswick coach Byron Slack, who was hired away from Cook a month after the ban was lifted, said the sanctions were a “wake-up call” for his new team.

“When I got the job and I addressed them the first time, you could see in their faces that they were like, ‘Yeah, that wasn’t fun. That wasn’t fun at all,’” Slack said. “I joked with them about, ‘Yeah, it’s been fun to look on the internet’ and watching, ‘Oh look at so-and-so, and look at so-and-so,’ until they put that postseason ban, and then it got real.”

Slack wasn’t charged with making the same on-field changes that many first-year coaches face. Brunswick hasn’t had trouble winning — it has four region titles in the last five years — but the team needed to move forward.

“I told them we weren’t going to shy away from that, and we weren’t going to try to act like it didn’t happen,” Slack said. “We’re going to wear it and learn from it but certainly try to move on from it and use that as kind of the measuring stick, because like it or not, that’s what we’re known for.”

Brunswick blue decorates most of Slack’s office, but right in the middle of his desk stands a bright red book. Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” has impacted Slack’s approach to leading his team past the playoff fight.

The ancient Chinese military text’s emphasis on discipline has been critical.

“The two biggest things that I try to explain to them is discipline and love, and to me, they’re the same thing,” Slack said. “Discipline is a form of love, because if you love somebody or love something, you’re going to be disciplined in order to make sure it stays the way that you want it, and when showing somebody that you really love someone, you’re going to show them discipline.”

Quarterback Keygan Walker believes discipline will be vital this season as the Pirates carry the reputation created by the fight.

“We know people are going to try us,” Walker said. “We know people are going to try to get in our head and get us out of our character and try to get under our skin to win a ballgame.”

Slack said senior leaders like Walker have looked forward since he arrived, but Slack didn’t see the entire team move on from the fight until midsummer. The Pirates didn’t have a spring game, so their first competition against another team since the playoff loss was at a padded camp in Valdosta.

Slack said the Pirates were able to “hold their own,” and belief was restored.

“I was standing on the back of my truck, and we were passing out food, and they were looking around, and I said, ‘Man, I told y’all,’” Slack said. “And they were kind of like, ‘You know, Coach, you might be right,’ and it kind of flipped then.”

Senior running back Josiah Gibbons has a tangible vision for success in 2026: make the third round of the playoffs.

“(Brunswick hasn’t) done it since 1999, so that would be a big accomplishment,” Gibbons said.

High school football players don’t always know program history to the year, but that 1999 team isn’t just a piece of the past. Its picture is nailed to the wall in Brunswick’s facility as a reminder of the hallmark the Pirates are chasing.