Keith Freeman is on ground he never intended to walk.
With the TSSAA’s controversial two-game suspension of football coach Damon Floyd – one that flamed the Bradley Central/Cleveland rivalry – Freeman was thrust into the position of the Bears’ head coach last week and tonight.
“It’s hard on him,” Freeman said of Floyd, with whom he has coached for the last decade. “It’s 20 percent of the season – stiff punishment, especially when he didn’t know he was doing something wrong when he contacted a kid that already had been up here lifting.”
Freeman has contended for years that he never wanted to be a head coach and didn’t need the title or the responsibilities to stroke his ego or to meet his definition of success.
“I’ve known for a long time that I didn’t want to be a head coach. I’ve been with a lot of programs and understand the pressures and things you have to do that go with being a head coach,” he said. “I don’t have an ego, and look at the turnover every year. It’s hard when you’re also trying to be a teacher, a husband and a father.”