By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

The world of sports either has a sick sense of humor or a smothering level of irony.

It was 50 years ago that Central won the GHSA Class AAA state championship, something that former players are celebrating, and will do so officially together in December.

It’s also the year that Central had its second straight winless season in program history. And that has led to Central now being in search of its 13th head coach in its 56-season history.

Head coach Jarrett Laws was released on Monday after three seasons and a 1-29 record. The team was told Tuesday afternoon.

Laws was appreciative of principal Keturah Reese for allowing him to tell the Chargers he was no longer their head coach. It was an emotional meeting of about half an hour.

“I'm grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to share those emotions with them because at the end of the day, they're kids,” Laws said. “ They needed this. Those tears needed to be shared.

“You share moments with kids where you know their darkest secrets that are going on at the house,” he said. “You've made sure that they've had food on their table and rides to school. It becomes deeper.”

While Laws obviously wanted many more wins for his players to experience, he will depart confident that he and his staff were able to surpass other expectations of the job.

“My favorite saying is, ‘I got four years to help shape your next 40, and during those next 40, we should be family if I've done it right.’” Laws said. “So, time will tell, but I feel like we made some connections where when I'm a little bit older and a little bit grayer, those kids still want to be connected with me.”

Laws said he had other opportunities since arriving at Central, but focused on a promise to Central’s previous principal, Chendra Dupree, wife of Southwest head coach and athletics director Joseph Dupree.

“She asked me to make a commitment to this program that was bigger than football,” Laws said. “She really impressed upon me that everybody wants to do the Xs and )s, but nobody wants to do the deep work as far as making good character people.

“That's basically what she prayed for, to have a coach that wanted to come in that knew his X's and O's, but was willing to do the tough work and try and get these kids to be great human beings, and eventually it would turn into hopefully something good on the football field.”

It didn’t.

Central and Rutland both just finished their second straight 0-10 seasons.

The Chargers lost key players this season to transfers, and did nearly double their scoring output, but the four lowest-scoring teams in Central history were the last three along with 2021. Central has failed to score 100 points seven times, under five different head coaches.

While there’s little progress shown on paper, Laws saw improvements in the culture and on the field, and wasn’t necessarily alone.

One memory comes after an all-too-familiar Friday night result, a 54-0 loss to Dublin. Laws had been grumbling about a specific play that Dublin ran and scored on in every region game but one, and he didn’t want to be the next victim.

The point was hammered home to coaches and players, and it stuck, although Laws didn’t find out how much until after the game from Dublin head coach Roger Holmes.

“He shook my hand and he was like, ‘Coach, the numbers ain't going to say it, but y'all looked a hell of a lot better than you looked a year ago,” Laws said. “And he said, ‘By the way, tell that kid that told me we weren't getting that trap, tell him he was right.’"

One of the Chargers warned Holmes.

“I'll be damned,” Laws said with a laugh. “One of the kids … walked over and told (Holmes) before the game: ‘We know you're running that trap, so we're not going to give it up.’”

Such confidence in the face of another depressing season is the kind of attitude adjustment Laws tried to inspire despite the variety of roadblocks.

“I've always believed that, you know, you shake the heart of a child first,” he said. “When you look at that kid (who) may be 5-7, 150 pounds … Who would say that kid doesn't deserve somebody to look at him and see what he can do well. That just has been my driving force the whole time that I was down here.”

Still, it’s been the most challenging stint of his career. And he started two programs from scratch.

Laws went 11-12 at Mount Zion-Jonesboro, 20-27 at Drew, 17-6 at Griffin, and 27-41 at Salem, with two years as a head coach in Florida. He attended Wingate and holds degrees from South Florida and Nova Southeastern.

Central has had four head coaches make it through five seasons: Joaquin Sample, 16-36 from 2018-22; Jesse Hicks, 20-31 from 2012-16; Anthony Hines,34-57 from 2002-10; Tom Simonton, 114-83 from 1979-97.

Simonton has 41.9 percent of the program’s wins in 34 percent of its seasons. He’s 80 wins ahead of No. 2, Hines.

Of all the head coaches, only Goot Steiner (30-3-1, 1970-72) and Gene Brodie (28-5-1, 1973-75) have winning records. Carl Summers went 5-5 in 1978 as the only other coach with a non-losing record.

Central has 21 winning seasons out of 56, but only four since the turn of the century. It sits at 272-303-3, 47.3 percent, according to the Georgia High School football Historians Association website.

Central has Bibb County’s second public school opening so far. Westside head coach Spoon Risper announced before the season that this would be his final year leading the Seminoles.

They play Morgan County in the first round of the GHSA Class AA playoffs next week.

Successors to both will have major challenges.

Bibb County public school teams aren’t as a whole trending well.

It’s the second such stretch for Rutland, which did went winless in 2017-18.

Howard went winless in 2011-12, but those came in the fourth and fifth years of the program. Southwest went 0-20 in 2004-05.

Laws doesn’t expect to be unemployed too long, regardless of the position. And he’s grateful for many aspects of the three seasons in Macon. But the lack of success won’t change his focus and priority, that wins and losses are important and nice, but …

“Maybe these wins weren't what everybody wanted, but two things I know happened,” he said. “Number one, I know we kept kids from being tax burdens and helped them to become taxpayers.

“And the other thing is, I can honestly walk away from this saying, you know, you don't have to be at a (big successful program) to have a coach that cares about you, that’s … going to really try and put you in the best position to to be competitive.”

Laws said the staff’s work ethic stayed as strong as it could.

“We never stole a check,” he said, noting the smaller-than average staff. “Me and my staff, we never stole a check. When we came, I wasn't just going to line up and 4-4 cover 3 and tell them ‘get deep.’ “I wasn't just going to be like, ‘Hey, run the dive and just get the hell out of the way.’ We were going to learn football.”

And more.

“We may have been outmanned at a position or we may have not had the (talent level of) kids we were facing,” Laws said. “But there was never a moment where I didn't put my best foot forward to make the kids feel like they belonged.”