Coaching carousel: Peach County girls basketball, Dublin football, Twiggs County football, Mount de Sales basketball

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          Peach County’s latest head girls basketball coach brings familiarity with winning as a player to her new job.

          The Trojans promoted Khayla (Owens) Brown last week from assistant to head coach.

          Sort of.

          The school system posted her promotion earlier this week, but the school’s athletics website lists Don Hudson as the head coach. He is retiring from basketball.

          And MaxPreps – with information input by Peach County – lists Brown as the Trojans’ head coach the past two seasons.

          Brown, who got married in early March, was a key part of the Veterans’ girls basketball run a little more than a decade ago, the standout post player helping the Warhawks to a 30-2 record and semifinal trip as a senior in 2014-15.

          Brown was also a key part of the girls soccer program, one that reached the finals in 2014.

          She is also Peach County’s head flag football coach.

          The school has had problems filling the job since the retirement in longtime head coach Maxine Cherry retired in 2016, going from Tamica Sneed to Sherry Richards to assistant football coach Hudson.

          Owens started in soccer and basketball at Georgia Southwestern.

Ingram heading from Dublin to Bowdon

          One former Central Georgia head football coach is joining another former Central Georgia head coach, outside of Central Georgia.

          Joel Ingram, whose dismissal from Washington County in late 2021 stunned the state high school football community, is joining Jamie Abrams, whose dismissal in early 2025 from Cedartown stunned the state high school football community, at Bowdon.

          Ingram was approved earlier this week, and will serve as assistant head coach, strength and conditioning coordinator, and offensive line coach.

          The pair’s recent career path may have led to a connection of destiny.

          Ingram was 131-58-1 in 14 years as head coach at Washington County, following six as an assistant. Along the way, the Golden Hawks maintained their reputation as one of the state’s top powerlifting programs.

          Abrams was 50-12 in five seasons at Cedartown, from 2020-24, with three region championships and breaking a drought dating back to a three-year run in 1999-2001.

          He was the program’s third-winningest coach in wins with 50 – John Hill went 214-78-4 from 1976-2000). Abrams went 15-7-1 in two seasons at Lamar County, and was an assistant at McEachern when hired at Cedartown, which went 2-8 in the first year after his dismissal..

          Abrams was hired two months later by another Central Georgian, Richard Fendley of Warner Robins, at Bowdon as defensive coordinator.

          Fendley left Class A/Division II Bowdon in January – with a 79-26 record and four state titles in eight seasons, plus five region titles – for Class AA Rockmart.   

          Bowdon’s new assistant brings four region championships and two state championship-game trips as a head with him, plus six seasons of at least 10 wins.

          Ingram joined the staff of longtime rival and friend Roger Holmes at Dublin, where he has been the past four seasons, helping the Irish to a 38-11 record, a region title, and a 6-4 postseason record.

          His successor in Sandersville, WACO alum and former Georgia standout Robert Edwards, was dismissed last December with a 20-24 record and no playoff wins in four seasons.

          Ingram was a finalist to replace his replacement, but the board voted for Jay Ware, ironically an assistant coach at Cedartown for two seasons, who is making his head coaching debut.

          Rickey Edmond, the superintendent behind Ingram’s firing, was released in the summer of 2023 from his job by the county school board after a variety of financial and personnel concerns.

          Ingram’s children are of college age and out of he house, and the move brings the Alabama native and Jacksonville State grad much closer to his aging and ailing mother in Alabama.

Twiggs County picks Harden, again

          The last time Ashley Harden was Twiggs County’s head football coach, the Cobras went 8-4.

          That was in 2016.

          Since then, Harden has been at Northeast, Stewart County, Dooly County, lasting a game with the Bobcats, among other places as an assistant.

          Since then, Twiggs County has gone 6-73, with three winless seasons, covering four head coaches.

          Roderick Cummings left early this month after going 2-18 in two seasons to take over at Southwest.

          Harden is the second repeat head coach at Twiggs County this century. Dexter Copeland coached the Cobras from 2001-09 and for 2014, being replaced by Harden after going 1-9.

          Copeland, in the job market himself, has seven of Twiggs County’s eight winning seasons since 2000, Harden owning the other one.

Mount de Sales plugging an alum in at basketball for a season

          For the second time in a month, Mount de Sales is reaching back to better days for a head coach.

          Mike Walton, a 1999 Mount de Sales grad, was announced last week as the Cavs’ new head boys basketball coach for the 2026-27 season.

          Nearly three weeks ago, the school announced that athletics director emeritus and former longtime head football coach Robert Slocum was returning to the sidelines for a year.

          He’s replacing Gray Yates, who left in January for a coaching and teaching job in Memphis after three seasons as head coach and several as an assistant.

          Deion Taylor, who was hired in 2021-22, resigned recently to return to coach in his home state of Louisiana. He led the Cavs to a region tournament titles – their first in more than a decade – in 2024-25.

          According to MaxPreps – which is solely based on information submitted in individual schools and programs – Mount de Sales went 56-65 under Taylor, the team’s fifth head coach since 2010.

          The school made no announcements of the Yates and Taylor departures.

          After several seasons as a paid and volunteer assistant coach, Walton has been out of coaching for a few years. He has coached at Wesleyan and worked in basketball administration and on ethe at South Carolina State.

          Walton was part of GISA state championships at Mount de Sales in football and basketball, earning loads of top-player honors in both sports.

          He earned four letters at Rice from 1999-2003. Walton was FPD’s boys coach from 2014-2018.