Four schools announce coaching hires
Gainesville, Lumpkin County, Cook and Temple announced football coaching hires Monday.
Gainesville formally introduced Josh Niblett, who led Hoover to six Alabama state titles. Niblett’s record at Hoover was 171-26 over 14 seasons. Gainesville was 5-5 last season in Class 7A and will fall back to 6A next season.
Gainesville’s former coach, Heath Webb, landed quickly at Lumpkin County, a 3A school. Lumpkin County was 2-8 this season. Webb has been a Georgia head coach for four seasons each at Gainesville, Winder-Barrow and North Paulding.
Cook, a Class 2A school, hired Byron Slack, Colquitt County’s defensive line coach. Slack was Hillgrove’s coach in 2020, when his team finished 4-5. Slack previously was on staffs at Lowndes and Camden County. Cook was 5-6 this season under Jamie Rodgers.
Temple, a 2A school, hired Central of Carrollton defensive coordinator Cory Nix to replace Scotty Ward, who retired. Nix had been a head coach at Gordon Central in 2017 and 2018, where his teams were 5-15 after going 0-10 the season prior. A Cherokee County native, Nix has been on staffs at Villa Rica, Roswell, Woodstock, Sequoyah and Chamblee. Temple was 1-7 this season.
Below are reported openings since the end of the 2021 regular season. Coaches that have been hired as replacements are listed in parentheses. There have been 38 among GHSA schools, including Seckinger, a new Gwinnett County school scheduled to open in 2022.
ACE Charter: Sam Zanders (Keith Hatcher)
Adairsville: Eric Bishop
B.E.S.T. Academy: Joshua Moore
Bacon County: Keith Gosse
Berkmar: Willie Gary
Brookstone: Blair Harrison
Colquitt County: Justin Rogers
Cook: Jamie Rodgers (Byron Slack)
East Paulding: Billy Shackelford
Gainesville: Heath Webb (Josh Niblett)
Greene County: Larry Milligan
Heritage (Conyers): Eddie Snell
Houston County: Ryan Crawford
Jasper County: Aaron Pitts
Kell: Brett Sloan (Bobby May)
Lanier: David Willingham
Locust Grove: Mark Miller
Lumpkin County: Caleb Sorrell (Heath Webb)
*Mount de Sales: Keith Hatcher
McIntosh: Lee Belknap
Midtown: Kevin Clark
Mundy’s Mill: Dwayne Davis
Ola: Ryan Angel
Pace Academy: Chris Slade
Paulding County: Van Spence
Ridgeland: Kip Klein
Seckinger: New school
South Paulding: Eric Robinson
*Stratford Academy: Mark Farriba
Sumter County: Ross Couch
Taylor County: Robert Yevak
Temple: Scott Ward (Cory Nix)
Thomas County Central: Ashley Henderson (Justin Rogers)
Washington County: Joel Ingram
Wayne County: Ken Cribb
Westlake: Bobby May
White County: Tim Cokely
Woodland (Cartersville): Tony Plott
*Moving to Georgia Independent School Association
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