The hire of Ron West as a co-offensive line coach for Georgia Tech was made official Thursday. West will work with offensive line coach Mike Sewak.
“I’m excited to add Ron to our staff,” coach Paul Johnson said in a statement. “He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to our staff and he’ll be a big part of our program moving forward.”
West will receive a salary of $225,000, according to an offer letter obtained through an open-records request. The length of the contract is not specified, but all of Tech’s assistant coaches aside from defensive coordinator Ted Roof have generally worked on one-year contracts. Among the eight assistants on the staff for the 2015-16 academic year besides Roof, four were paid larger salaries.
West grew up in the Atlanta area and attended Russell High, which is now Tri-Cities High. Among his classmates was Tom Cooksey, the father of Tech linebacker Tyler Cooksey. Tech guard Shamire Devine graduated from Tri-Cities.
“Having grown up and played high school football in Georgia, it’s an honor for me to come back home and coach at a great institution like Georgia Tech,” West said in a statement. “I’ve spent much of my career in the ACC and I have great respect for Tech’s program and what Paul Johnson has done there.”
West has coached for 35 seasons with stops at Clemson, Illinois, Arizona State and North Carolina. His most recent job was at North Carolina, where he was co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach in 2013-14. He also has extensive experience coaching the offensive line as well. He played at Clemson.
West takes the spot of Ray Rychleski, the special-teams coordinator who left by mutual agreement after the season. Johnson has normally had two coaches devoted to coaching the offensive line but changed his model prior to the 2012 season, hiring Dave Walkosky specifically to coach special teams. Johnson said he made the change with Rychleski because he didn’t see enough production to warrant not having a second line coach.
