John Starr, who won 106 games in stints at Josey and Chattooga, is the new head coach at Salem in Rockdale County.
Starr won a Class AAA championship while at Josey of Augusta in 1995, when his star player was Deion Grant. Starr had several playoff seasons at Chattooga from 1997 to his unexpected mid-season firing in 2008.
Starr commented on that strange episode in this story in the Rockdale News.
"We were ranked No. 10 in the state, lost a game we should have won, and the next morning I lost my job," Starr said. "I never had a blemish on my record, was never questioned about anything, and everyone was always supportive of what we were doing. ... For me it's in the past. I moved on from that a long time ago."
According to the Rockdale News, Starr had the strong endorsement of East Jackson coach Frank Caputo, the former Salem coach who took the program to the Class AAAA semifinals in 2004.
Caputo's replacement at Salem, Chad Estes, was 27-14 in four seasons. Salem was 6-4 last season when it defeated AAAA quarterfinalist Rockdale County 21-14 and lost to state runner-up Clarke Central 23-20.
Estes resigned in early December.
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