Coaches strive to lift victory-starved players, programs

They go long stretches — sometimes consecutive seasons — without victories and fight against the notion they are Georgia’s forgotten high school football programs.

The players and coaching staffs don’t see themselves in that light. They face each day the ultimate challenge of trying to dig their programs out of a hole others think is impossible.

Coahulla Creek, a Class AAA school in Dalton, is 3-38 since 2015 and suffered winless seasons in 2016 and ’17 before winning once last year. That 35-7 victory against Murray County stopped a 27-game skid dating to 2015. They opened this season with a 21-7 loss to Northwest Whitfield.

When Colts coach Caleb Bagley arrived in 2017 for his first head coaching gig, only three seniors and eight juniors were on the roster.

“Only 10 players could drive a car,” he said. “It was rough.”

Although Year 1 presented an uphill battle, he had a plan. He came from North Murray, where he was an assistant with the Mountaineers when Preston Poag turned around the program. In fact, in Bagley’s only season at North Murray, the Mountaineers posted their first winning season and playoff victory in the program’s 10th year of existence.

“I had some ideas and a blueprint that I knew would take some time,” Bagley said.

Bagley focuses on small victories. For example, each year his goal is to score more points than the previous season. In his debut season, the Colts scored 85 points. Last year, they scored 125. They increased their number of players from 30 his first year to 80 this year — another positive.

Although the victories aren’t coming on the field, morale is improving at Coahulla Creek. Bagley brings the team together through team-building activities, which include taking the team to a Falcons preseason game, practicing with the staff at Reinhardt University and holding team dinners.

With improved morale and team engagement, the likelihood of players transferring decreases.

“That’s one of the things I researched when I got here; we lost 13-15 kids in a three-year span,” Bagley said. “That was the first thing we had to put a stop to, and I haven’t lost a kid since we’ve been here. That comes down to us spending time with the kids, working with the booster club, hosting eighth-grade night barbecues and welcoming them in.”

Berkmar competes in Class AAAAAAA and went winless from 2014-17, part of a 47-game losing streak. With nearby Parkview and Brookwood among the many other Gwinnett County powerhouses, the Patriots have been a bottom-feeder for almost their entire existence, which dates to 1966. They’ve never won a playoff game.

Willie Gary took over the Patriots in 2018, and under his leadership the team posted three victories in his first season. They’re off to a 1-0 start this season after a 53-6 victory against Cross Keys last Friday.

Gary, who was promoted to head coach after serving as an assistant on the Patriots staff the previous five seasons, has dealt with kids quitting and transferring. But he’s determined to turn the program around.

“You’ve got to treat the kids well,” he said. “If you do, they’ll trust you, regardless if they win or lose. They’ll start to buy in. At the end of the day, if they trust and believe in you, they’ll stay and fight.”

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Jason Carrera turned around another AAAAAAA program in Gwinnett — the Meadowcreek Mustangs of Lilburn.

Before Carrera arrived in 2015, Meadowcreek endured a 5-125 stretch, dating to 2002. By his third year at the helm in 2017, he guided the team to a 7-4 record and its first playoff appearance since 1988. Last year the Mustangs again qualified for the playoffs, giving the program back-to-back postseason appearances for the first time. Meadowcreek opened in 1986.

“I knew the challenges coming in,” Carrera said. “The numbers were low; the participation was low. Kids were just not going to practice or weight training, and there was no accountability. So we started with accountability measures, kept the kids here who belonged here (from transferring), and our biggest goal was to increase participation.”

His recipe for success is the same that Coahulla Creek, Berkmar and other struggling programs are using. The challenge continues.