Jackets alum replaces Hales to lead wrestling program
A former Calhoun High wrestler is getting the chance to come home again.
Former Jackets wrestler and 2005 graduate Michael Herndon has been hired as the new Calhoun wrestling coach. Herndon’s hire was approved last week at the Calhoun Board of Education meeting, as he will replace Dale Hales, who resigned at the end of the school year.
Herndon has spent the last four years at Southeast Whitfield, serving as an assistant wrestling coach for one year and the head coach the last three.
Herndon said it’s a good chance for him to come back to his alma mater where he sees a lot of familiar faces.
“It doesn’t happen at a whole lot of schools, but coming back 10 years later, there’s a lot of the same people there that were when I was there,” said Herndon. “I played football and wrestled, and Coach ( Hal) Lamb was my football coach and Coach (Dale) Hales was my wrestling coach.
“It’s exciting to come back. And a lot of people that were once my teachers and coaches, I’ll be able to coach and teach right alongside them now. I’m very excited to come in and have the opportunity to coach wrestling at Calhoun.”
Lamb, the Calhoun High Athletic Director, said he’s happy to bring Herndon back to Calhoun for this head-coaching job.
“We are very excited to have Michael as our head wrestling coach,” said Lamb. “He is an alumni of Calhoun, and we are glad to have him back home. He knows the expectations here at Calhoun High School because he was a member of the football, wrestling and track teams when he was in high school. He has done a tremendous with the wrestling program at Southeast Whitfield, and we feel he will do the same here.”
Herndon replaces Hales, who has had two separate stints as head coach at Calhoun and has coached the team for over a decade.
Herndon graduated from Kennesaw State before starting at Southeast Whitfield in 2010. During his time with the Raiders, the program made its first-ever appearance at the State Duals and had an individual state champ along with several individual state runner-up finishes.
The new head coach said his big focus for his teams is the conditioning it takes to be successful in wrestling as well as concentrating on the full team aspect of the sport.
“The biggest thing for me is being in shape,” said Herndon. “That’s one thing we focused on at Southeast Whitfield. I’ve seen a lot of matches won or lost in the third period based on what kind of shape wrestlers were in. So we want to be strong in the weight room.
“Another thing we want to do is have someone in each weight class. We don’t want to have to give up any points in duals by not having a full team. We want to get in the halls and get as many kids out there to wrestle as we can.”
As far as expectations for the Jackets’ wrestling program, Herndon said he just wants to continue to build on the consistency that’s already there.
“Calhoun has had a good wrestling program in the past so we just want to continue competing for region titles and going to State Duals,” said Herndon.
“We want to continue to have a lot of guys qualify for State and also eventually win a team state title.”
Last season, Calhoun had three wrestlers make it to the Class AA State Traditional Tournament at Toombs County High School.
Aaron Aguirre represented the Jackets in the 106 weight class, Skyler West competed in the 138 weight class and Will Conley made the trip to wrestle in the 170 weight class.