If at times during Friday night’s scrimmage at Harmon Field it looked like a party had broken out on the home sideline, it wasn’t by accident.
Chris Prewett is preparing for his first season leading Dalton High School’s football program, and like every head coach, he has rules. One of his is that when something good happens for the Catamounts on the field, it’s party time on the sideline.
“Like everybody, we get on kids when they repeatedly do things wrong, but one rule I always enforce is that we get onto them when we don’t celebrate,” Prewett said. “We have a tent where we can watch video, like every team does, but we call it the ‘Party Tent’ because when something good happens, we meet in there and celebrate.”
Prewett was hired from Roswell to replace Kit Carpenter after Dalton was winless last year, with the Catamounts posting the first 0-10 record in the history of a Northwest Georgia program known for its consistency after only a handful of losing seasons over the past seven-plus decades.
At Roswell, Prewett was 50-13 in five seasons and took the Hornets to the GHSA state playoffs each year, and he has every intention of winning at Dalton, too. It may or may not happen right away, but he can promise one thing: His players will enjoy the ride.