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South Decatur


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Per the school board meeting agenda from February 13, Garry Sauley has submitted his resignation as head Varsity football coach. This upcoming season will make South Decatur's fourth head coach since 2014. Things have gone downhill since 1990, when South won the 1A state championship. Young coaches have been pushed out to please the school board and various parents (not just in football) and the overall athletic program has suffered. Hopefully SD can find themselves a young, excited, motivated coach and will give that person an opportunity to rebuild, rather than being complacent in mediocrity. 

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1 hour ago, RedwoodCowTippers said:

Parents should focus on parenting and leave the coaching to coaches. Maybe, juusssttt maybe, some young good coaches would stay around these small schools if politics and agendas of parents and school boards would stay out of it.....

just my thoughts on the situation....

I heard a sports psychologist speak once (targeted to a group of parents) and his best advice was there are 4 major roles in any sporting event: players, coaches, officials and parents. Each group has a distinct job to do and nobody should do more than 1 of them.  It makes so much sense! Of course as an official we have to worry about everyone else trying to do our job too.

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3 hours ago, RedwoodCowTippers said:

Parents should focus on parenting and leave the coaching to coaches. Maybe, juusssttt maybe, some young good coaches would stay around these small schools if politics and agendas of parents and school boards would stay out of it.....

just my thoughts on the situation....

Agreed. Sadly though, it’s not just small schools. 

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I’m curious as to why someone joins this forum to make a disparaging post about Decatur County Schools? South Decatur has enjoyed some success since 1990, obviously no state titles, but they’ve had some good teams. North Decatur has been having some success over the last couple of years, perhaps it’s a cyclical thing? SD’s BB seems in pretty good shape with a steady supply of talent heading up HWY 3.  I’m not quite ready to go all in on the bad school board thing just yet, something seems amis to me.

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Overall, SD has had a fair amount of stability. Wendling, then Martin, then Bell. Those are the only coaches since at least 2002. Not bad, especially compared to a lot of places. Sauley only being there one year is odd, but perhaps he decided to retire again. He's a good coach and has been in it a long time. As I recall, the other coaches left on their own volition. School boards can make a mess at many places, and perhaps this is one of those cases, but recent history doesn't seem to point in that direction. 

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On 2/17/2019 at 8:46 AM, boilerfan87 said:

Overall, SD has had a fair amount of stability. Wendling, then Martin, then Bell. Those are the only coaches since at least 2002. Not bad, especially compared to a lot of places. Sauley only being there one year is odd, but perhaps he decided to retire again. He's a good coach and has been in it a long time. As I recall, the other coaches left on their own volition. School boards can make a mess at many places, and perhaps this is one of those cases, but recent history doesn't seem to point in that direction. 

I would argue that Herb King helped bring stability to the program -  Speaking as a football alumni from South who played for 3 different coaches in 4 years, There were some very down times of the program -  Coach King established a direction for South Decatur and built a tradition and expectation of winning while he was there.  Coach Martin was one of the assistants under Coach King as well - Both were instrumental in my development as a player and as a person.  

South has the opportunity to make a statement hire and get things moving in the right direction.  They need someone young, energetic, and willing to accept the grind of being a 1A football coach and the responsibilities that come with it.  The community also needs to be able to accept culture change.  

I truly wish them the best and want to see them succeed.  I loved being and SD Cougar... and I now love being a GC Cougar.   

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