Howard coach Mark Teague blows a horn to move his team to their next assignment during practice Monday.Mark Teague has found his next challenge.
Following two years as head football coach at The Howard School of Academics and Technology, Teague is leaving Chattanooga after accepting an offer to lead the football program at Bolton High School in Alexandria, La.
The move will allow Teague, 45, to be closer to his fiancée, Latasha Walker, who is a nurse practitioner in New Orleans. The couple plan to marry next January.
"It was a tough decision for me to leave the kids I've gotten so close to at Howard, but this is just a better opportunity for my family and our future," Teague said. "I appreciate the opportunity the administration at Howard gave me to become a head coach, and I believe we've worked hard to get the program headed in the right direction."
Howard was Teague's first head coaching job, and he inherited a program that had won just three games in the three seasons before he took over. The Hustlin' Tigers also had only eight players show up for the team's first offseason workouts.
With mostly first-year varsity players in the lineup, the Hustlin' Tigers finished 0-10 in Teague's debut season. Yet despite being a team still loaded with underclassmen last year, Howard showed progress in 2015 by winning two games with three of their losses by two scores or less.
This season Howard will have nine starters back on each side of the ball, making it one of the up-and-coming teams in the city. Several of those players are expected to be college prospects.
"Ideally we'd like to have a new coach in place before spring break so they can be here to organize spring practice," Howard principal Zac Brown said. "We know time is of the essence, but our priority isn't to move too fast, it's to find the right coach who will continue moving the program forward in the direction Coach Teague has us going.
"The hard work has already been put in by Coach Teague to lay the foundation for success in the future, so I would think any coach who's interested would see this as a great opportunity. Coach Teague is a man of high character, and we hate to lose him. But it's understandable."
Teague came to Howard after a year as the defensive coordinator at East Ridge, where the Pioneers held six opponents to fewer than 20 points. A native of Dothan, Ala., Teague previously spent time as the defensive coordinator at Alabama's Ashford Academy and later as an assistant for four seasons at Marion, an Arkansas high school located half an hour from Memphis.
Bolton, Teague's new team, was not only winless last season but lost its 10 games by an average margin of 56-6. The Bears, a Class 3A program, never allowed fewer than 40 points and scored more than seven just twice. The Bears' former coach was 7-23 in three seasons.
"It's another rebuilding project, but they have a true feeder program and a lot of resources, so I see the potential," Teague said. "It's easy to look at the negatives, but where most people would see problems, I see possibilities.
"My first order of business early on will be to establish an identity both offensively and defensively that best utilizes the skill set of the players. The defensive side of the ball is my baby, so that will be a major point of emphasis in developing the mindset I want this team to have."
Teague will begin work at his new job on Feb. 29. Howard will begin its search for a new coach immediately.
With so much experienced talent returning, the program is looking for its first winning season since 2010.
Howard is the third Hamilton County football program now searching for a new head coach, joining East Ridge and Central.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.