Even when he was still playing football for Dalton High School, Patrick Liner was looking forward to a future in which he hoped to one day become a head coach.
That dream became a reality Friday, when East Hamilton High School announced the 37-year-old Liner would be the next sideline leader for a program he has great familiarity with.
From 2019 to 2022, Liner was the offensive coordinator for the Hurricanes under head coach Grant Reynolds. During that time, East Hamilton scored an average of 34.4 points per game while producing a 32-13 overall record that included a 21-3 mark in region play.
Now he is just the fourth head coach ever for the Hurricanes, who debuted in 2009 and were led for a decade by Ted Gatewood before he was succeeded by Reynolds, whose four-year run was capped by the program’s first region title and its fourth run to the TSSAA state quarterfinals in 2022. Liner follows Aaron Nance, whose three-year tenure pushed East Hamilton’s streak of consecutive playoff berths to eight and was highlighted by a 2024 season that produced the Hurricanes’ second region title and their fifth state quarterfinals appearance.
“East Hamilton has a long tradition of winning,” said. Liner, who was a two-time region offensive assistant coach of the year in his first stint with the Hurricanes. “Coach Gatewood did a great job from the start here, and Coach Reynolds is someone I will be forever indebted to because he let me have the reins as an offensive coordinator here. Coach Nance picked up from what those two coaches did and did a tremendous job building and continuing to grow the football program.