VARNELL, Ga. — Less than a month after leading the Coahulla Creek High School football team to its first playoff game in the program’s 11 varsity seasons, Danny Wilson has resigned as head coach.
Wilson guided the Colts to a 7-4 record, which included a third-place finish in GHSA Region 6-AAA. Their season ended with a first-round loss to eventual state champion Sandy Creek. Wilson compiled a three-year record of 13-18 at the Whitfield County school after it had won just nine games in eight seasons.
While proud of the turnaround, Wilson was disappointed in certain aspects of the program.
“When I got here six years ago when Coach (Caleb) Bagley hired me as an assistant coach, I knew it was going to be a tough job,” Wilson said Friday. “Bob Brotherton, the athletic director at the time, asked me after that first season if we could ever win here and I said, ‘Yes, I think so.’
“And we’ve proven that the past two years, but it’s a lot tougher than I first anticipated. There are a lot of obstacles to building a consistent program, and it’s not just one big thing. Lots of little things that add up to being very hard.
“For example, we were 6-2 and had qualified for the playoffs for the first time in school history with two games left, and we go to LaFayette and there are 58 folks in the stands. It’s tough to build a consistent winning program without community support. Also, as far as players, we’re not growing the way we should be numbers-wise.
“This season was gratifying, but I had a hard time celebrating it. I wasn’t, I felt, establishing anything sustainable.”
Coahulla Creek principal Tracy Mardis said the school hopes to continue to build the program and will consider current members of the staff to replace Wilson.
“He’s really irreplaceable,” said Mardis, whose son, Hudson, was an offensive lineman on the team. “He’s done so much for our program and throughout our community. He’s done a great job getting this program established and he’s hired a great staff.
“He just basically instilled pride in our program and community. He’s the best coach I’ve been around. It’s a big loss for us. I’m really in shock this morning, and I hate for him to leave. As the father of a son who played for him, I was able to see the influence he had on the kids.
“We will definitely look inward because we have some great assistants, but it’s definitely going to be difficult to replace him.”
Wilson, 57, who had previous head coaching stops in Tennessee at Cleveland, Maryville Heritage and South Pittsburg and spent several years as an assistant at Cleveland, South Pittsburg and Coahulla Creek, hopes to keep coaching.
“I will coach until I can’t coach anymore, but right now I feel I’ve done as much as I can do here,” he said. “I’m proud of our staff and I want to thank Tracy Mardis, who has been nothing but supportive.
“I would like to stay in the area, but I will consider anything. I also love being in the classroom, which is one of the hardest things about leaving here because it’s a fantastic school.
“I still feel like I’ve got a few years left in me and I want to keep doing what I love, but we’ll see.”
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.
Updated with more information at 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 16, 2022.