Record-setting offense helps propel Lassiter to breakthrough season
Today’s Four Questions interviewee is Lassiter coach Sean Thom, whose team is 8-2, its best record in his eight seasons. Lassiter, much improved from its 5-5 finish last season, is playing at Gainesville in a Class 6A first-round game Friday night. Thom, a Florida native, has coached for 17 years, including stints as a head coach at Maryville State in North Dakota and McCormick High in South Carolina.
1. What’s different about this Lassiter team that makes it your best in your time there?
“I think first and foremost, there is a lot of talent throughout this freshman through senior group. The biggest difference is that we have been able to stack classes here for a few years, and the kids have stayed, helping us get to this point. We have a great coaching staff, with four former head coaches. and there has been consistency in our schemes in all three phases of the game, which has helped tremendously. Finally, early in the year we preached to our kids a lot about the concept of mudita, which is having a joy when others have success. That is something that has been fun to see. Not a lot of selfishness with this group, and it doesn’t matter who is making the play, they get fired up for the success of the team. Our seniors have been the glue that has held this program together, and it has been great to see them get to enjoy the journey to this point in the season.”
2. What would you want people to know about the team? What’s the scouting report, what you do well?
“I believe our team has done a decent job all year of playing complementary football. When one phase of the game seems to be struggling a bit, the other two have stepped up to pick them up. Offensively, this unit became the highest-scoring regular-season offense in the history of the school, which is a huge accomplishment given some of the success and talent in years past. Defensively, we have a unit that flies around to the football and enjoys playing with and for one another. Our Special Forces unit has been phenomenal all year long, and we have had numerous guys step up to impact many games throughout the year.”
Note: Collins Price leads Class 6A with 1,109 receiving yards. He has compiled 1,443 all-purpose yards and scored 17 touchdowns. Sophomore Caden Jones has thrown for 2,354 yards, fourth-most in Class 6A, with 28 touchdowns. Lassiter’s 386 points are the most in school history for a regular season, beating the 384 scored in 2009, when the Trojans’ quarterback was Hutson Mason, who went on to play for Georgia and become a member of the Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame.
3. Tough draw to be getting Gainesville. Do you believe the seeds are fair? Do you like the playoff format and the PSR?
“I’ll be honest, I see it from both sides. On the one hand, I would like to see your wins have more of an impact than who you play and so on. You just never know what one team is going to be from one year to the next in today’s day and age. However, when you look at our situation, we ended up being the 3 seed (third-place finisher in Region 6) from our region and would have matched up with a 2 from another region (Gainesville finished second in Region 7) if you went by previous years’ standards. Simple fact is you are going to play great teams when you get to the round of 32, and we are excited for the opportunity to play in a game of this magnitude. What a great honor and privilege for our young men to go to a storied program in the state of Georgia to compete our tails off.”
Note: Lassiter is the No. 19 seed. Gainesville is the No. 14 seed.
4. You’ve been at Lassiter for eight seasons now. This is your first winning season. Many schools aren’t that patient, to be honest. That’s the sign of a school that believes in you and also values what you bring beyond immediate on-the-field results. What do you think it says?
“I will say this. We have one of the best administrations I have ever had the privilege to serve under in (principal) Dr. Chris Ritchie and (athletic director) Scott Kelly. Looking back, they were extremely honest with me when I took this job back in 2019. They were up front about the struggles and challenges that we were going to go through and, looking back, I am thankful for the adversity we had to go through because I believe it helped form us into what we are today. It made us tough and helped us handle hard better. We try to do uncommon things here at Lassiter. We try to do things the right way, work extremely hard, embrace the suck and treat kids the right way so they can one day become great husbands, fathers, citizens, etc. I am thankful for the opportunity to serve in this role and don’t take for granted the power we have as coaches to influence our future generations.”