Red Bank coordinator a mentor to two local coaches making playoff debut

Cortney Braswell is a first-year head coach at Central High. Six area football teams scrimmaged at Bradley Central High School in Cleveland, Tennessee on Saturday, July30, 2016.

Marion County's Joey Mathis and Central's Cortney Braswell got unique head starts on their initial seasons as head football coaches.

They are two of four area first-year head coaches in the TSSAA playoffs, joining Boyd-Buchanan's Carter Cardwell and Howard's John Starr. Starr had been a head coach in Georgia, but the other three had not been past the coordinator level.

Braswell and Mathis turned to Charles Weems for a daylong confab on the ins and outs of head coaching. Currently Red Bank's defensive coordinator, Weems has coached at the college level and also is a former head coach in Florida.

"When we met it was daylight. When we left it was dark," Mathis recalled.

The two new guys talked with Weems, defensive coordinator at Cumberland University when Mathis played there, about everything from X's and O's to game and practice plans and evaluating players to often overlooked details such as the concession stands, scoreboards and volunteers to handle the down-and-distance chains.

"There's a lot that goes into being successful and at times it has very little to do with you, but the learning curve is accelerated," Mathis said. "I have learned the minute you think you know it all, you learn very quickly that you don't."

Braswell turns still to Weems and, among others, former mentors Charles Fant (Notre Dame) and Damon Floyd (Bradley Central).

"I have learned a lot, but (head coaching) doesn't really feel that different to me than it did eight months ago when I was hired," said Braswell, a former star running back for Baylor. "It is a process and constant evaluating. I learned that from Coach Fant. Have we put people in the right places? Are we going about things the right way? Is there something we need to tweak? It's people, process and product and being willing to change."

He also has adopted Floyd's steady start-to-finish attitude and has worked to attain what he called the complete professionalism of Ringgold coach Robert Akins, another mentor.

Mathis said he too has relied on past mentors but also on his staff, most of them holdovers like him from Ricky Ross's 2015 assistants.

"You may find a better bunch of X's and O's coaches, but you won't find a bunch of men more loyal to the players, each other and the community," Mathis said. "In other jobs as an assistant I learned how important quality and loyal assistants are, and I think character coaches ultimately override X's and O's coaches."

Braswell at one time questioned his own character, specifically during the aftermath of losing his scholarship at Liberty University because of academic shortcomings.

He woke up, recognized and likely cursed his stupidity and determined that he would become a teacher/coach. He enrolled at Dalton State in 2011 and left in the fall of 2014 with bachelor's and master's degrees.

His determination, his future, his very dream of becoming a coach pressed him to the breaking point.

"I guess I learned my lesson. I flunked out at Liberty but never made a B after that," he said.

He once stretched a $1,000 coaching supplement over three months. He lived in an unlit, unheated apartment because he couldn't pay the power bill.

He often studied by candlelight, and when he needed an internet connection he'd slip into McDonald's and grab a soft drink while trying to ignore the aroma of sizzling French fries and frying burgers because he didn't have the money to buy them.

"Yeah, I struggled - no birthdays and no Christmases - but I was struggling for something I finally realized I needed and wanted," he said.

So for Braswell, being a first-year head coach and heading into the playoffs for the first time is really no struggle at all. It isn't even X's and O's; it's affirmation.

Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.