Moving on up: Central promotes from within to fill football and girls basketball jobs

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com
 

          No doubt Central principal Emanuel Frazier slept a little better Tuesday night than usual.

          He went to bed with a new head football coach and head girls basketball coach officially in place.

Joaquin Sample and son Elijah.

          The Bibb County Board of Education approved Joaquin Sample to lead the football program and promoted Tamara Bolston-Williams from assistant to head girls basketball coach.

          Of course, Sample and Bolston-Williams were no doubt just as happy Tuesday night.

          The football job has been vacant since Larry Harold resigned in early March after one season to take over at Americus-Sumter.

          That came about a week after Shelia Toombs publicly announced her retirement as head girls basketball coach.

          Central took a little more than a month to fill the positions. The school went to the other end of the spectrum to replace Toombs, a veteran of three decades in coach, by promoting Bolston-Williams, who has only a few years under her belt.

          Bolston-Williams has played under two fairly legendary coaches, Anderson Bentley at Baldwin and Lonnie Bartley at Fort Valley State.

          She is a 2001 graduate of Baldwin who just completed her third season at Central under Toombs and has been part of the program’s growth from one of single-digit wins to statewide rankings and playoff runs.

          Bolston-Williams earned her bachelor’s in science at FVSU, and has advanced degrees from there and Georgia College.

          She brings a diverse background to her new position, having also worked at the Baldwin County 911 center, FVSU’s Office of Academic Affairs, and the Macon-Bibb County Health Department.

          Sample is a graduate of Central, Class of 1998, the same year as former Georgia standout and NFL player Tony Gilbert, now on the staff at Central Florida.

          “Tony, he was our bigtime player at Central, he did so many things,” said Sample, a two-way linemen for the Chargers. “I learned a lot from Tony, playing with him, how he worked, how he prepared.”

          That – the exposure of colleges looking at Gilbert - also played a role in getting Sample where he is now, because Jesse Hicks recruited Sample for Albany State. Fast forward to Hicks taking over at Baldwin and eventually hiring Sample there as well as at Central.

          Sample played at Albany State, earning honorable mention All-SIAC honors in 2002.

          His teaching and coaching career began at Oak Hill Middle School in Milledgeville in 2003, and he moved to Howard in 2010 before joining the staff at Central in 2012.

          Sample stayed at Central under Harold when Hicks returned to Baldwin, and raved about the staff Harold had assembled.

          Sample hopes to have a full staff of four offensive and four defensive coaches, likely including many holdovers from Harold’s hires. He’ll meet with the team soon as the new head coach, but the Chargers have seen plenty of Sample in workouts and in class.

          Sample said the irony of he and Bolston-Williams getting their new jobs on the same day was huge.

          “Her first year, I was her co-teacher for a couple of her classes,” Sample said. “At that point, we never thought that we’d be both getting this opportunity at the same time.

          “She’s a dynamite teacher, the girls love her, she does everything at a high level. It’s awesome that she got the job, because she totally deserves it. She’s done things at a high level since she first stepped foot here at Central.”