Today’s interviewee is Forest Park coach Rex Robertson, whose team ended a 12-game losing streak last week with a 36-15 victory over Morrow. Forest Park, the alma mater of Pro Football Hall of Famer Hines Ward, hasn’t won more than three games in a season since 2000. Robertson, the program’s 14th coach in 20 years, is a Forest Park alumnus who had been Meadowcreek’s and Griffin’s offensive coordinator before being hired in 2020.
Rex Robertson, Forest Park head coach
1. What did last week’s victory mean to your program and players? “It means everything. Teaching winning habits and learning how to win are as important as anything we can do. Even winning spring games and scrimmages, those are big.”
2. Forest Park has struggled for two decades. It’s probably not even considered a good stepping-stone job. Some might say becoming a head coach at a non-winner can hurt a career. Why did you step up to take this job? “Because I’m an alum. Rick Griswell, who’s also on my coaching staff, he loves Forest Park. Every time the job came open, he’d push me to apply because of the positive influence he believed we could have turning the football program around. Forest Park has a huge alumni base. We have a Facebook page with 1,200 members, and I’m talking about going back to the ‘60s and ‘70s. So it’s more attractive to me than to other coaches, and I can do more with it than past coaches who had no ties. A lot of these coaches prior to me had no chance. Also, I believe I have one of the best staffs in Georgia. I mentioned Rick. Mike Rozier [who led Henry County to region titles with high-scoring teams in 2007-08] is my offensive coordinator. Tyler Teknipp [son of former Eagle’s Landing coach Joe Teknipp] is my defensive coordinator. The other coaches are players who’ve played for us. The staff I have is amazing. If not for them and the alumni, I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
3. Why has Forest Park struggled for so long, and what have you and your staff done to address it? “The way the world is now, everybody wants to be part of a winner, and if you’re not winning, they won’t have anything to do with it. There have been athletes in our other sports teams that wouldn’t be part of the football program because of the losing culture. We’ve already got two or three from basketball and baseball that are Division I athletes and raised our talent level. Then you have die-hard football people that don’t make it to Forest Park because they move before high school because they want to play for a winning team. That over two years would kill a program. Then there’s been no stability because coaches come and go. With a new coach every other year, there’s been no player development. Just being here two years now, the kids already see that we’re still here, and it’s made a difference. We just added 17 freshmen to the program since school started, so people want to play football now. I wish we had them all summer, but you’ve got to welcome new players so you’ll have a future.”
4. What’s realistic for Forest Park? Where do you hope to have the program in 2-4 years? “It’s a daily challenge trying to create a winning culture as it is with everything in this world nowadays. I believe realistically there are athletes here. The first goal is to be a winning team and a playoff team, then be able to contend for region champions in two to four years. That would be a realistic goal for Forest Park.”
Produced by Georgia High School Football Daily, a free e-mail newsletter. To join the mailing list, click here.
About the Author
