The new high school football coach at Strong Rock Christian has learned to listen to his wife.
Mark Miller is a Christian and went into coaching and teaching after working several years in private business. He landed a job as an assistant around 10 years ago at his alma mater, Woodward Academy.
"Within a few years, my wife pretty much said that I was going to be the next head coach at Woodward Academy," Miller recalled. "The current football coach was fine, and his job wasn't in jeopardy. I sort of dismissed what my wife said. Well, in about a year's time, the situation changed and I got the job."
Miller shared the story to explain the improbable chain of events that led to last week's acceptance of the coaching job at Strong Rock Christian, the GHSA Class A school in Locust Grove. Miller's wife had given him advance notice about that, too.
"About two years ago, we were down in that area and drove by the school just because we had heard about it," Miller said. "My wife basically told me that I was going to be the next coach at Strong Rock -- and this is while I'm the coach at Woodward. I didn't think too much about what she said. To make a long story short, they called about a month ago and things began to happen."
Miller resigned from Woodward Academy after six seasons as coach. It was one of the more notable changes in the coaching carousel since the end of last football season.
Woodward Academy, Peachtree Ridge, Campbell and North Atlanta are among the metro schools currently looking for new coaches. Milton, Roswell, Blessed Trinity, Shiloh, Clarkston, Dacula, Fayette County, Osborne and others have already finished the transition with a hiring.
"In the last dozen years, God has had his hand in 3-4 things in my life that were pretty big," Miller explained. "For me not go in that direction with Strong Rock, it would pretty much be like me saying I didn't trust God and what he was doing.
"People from the outside might be saying, ‘What the heck is that guy thinking? He is leaving a pretty well-established program at a school where he graduated from to go to a very small but up-and-coming school.' I'm pretty excited about it, though."
When asked if his wife had other revelations, Miller laughed and said, "No, not yet, but everybody keeps asking me that. They want to know if she can tell me how next season is going to go with wins and losses."
No one could foretell the future at Peachtree Ridge, which will be seeking its fourth head coach in less than 10 years of varsity football. Bill Ballard resigned to take a similar position at White County to be closer to family after the recent death of his father.
Peachtree Ridge is considered one of the elite jobs in the state. The Gwinnett school has an enrollment of nearly 3,300 students, which provides a rich and plentiful pool of athletic talent. It also has top-notch facilities, including a stadium that seats more than 7,000.
Peachtree Ridge has a short but strong football tradition. It played for state championships two out of the past five seasons in Georgia's largest classification, tying Roswell for the 2006 title. Peachtree Ridge athletic director Bill Holleman pointed out that the three previous coaches all resigned for personal reasons and were not forced out.
"You would hope that this is the type of job that someone would stay at for many years, but circumstances change for everybody," Holleman said. "We have always hired with that assumption; they are going to the right man for the job for years to come."
"I'm sure Georgia Tech thought they had the right man with Paul Hewitt, the same with Georgia with Jim Donnan. Situations change for everybody. We'll be OK. We'll move forward with the right fit."
Holleman also said football is the exception to the rule, with many of his staff members being around since the opening of the school.
"We interviewing members of our existing football staff, along with collecting resumes," he said. "We don't know what we're going to do to be able to do yet, as far as hiring someone from in-state, out of state, or out of county. We know we want somebody to have some longevity at a school that's good in a community that's good."
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