Navasota’s penalty for delay: its coach
Five words say all that needs to be said about how Navasota ISD’s school board woefully handled the contract extension of Lee Fedora, the athletic director and two-time state champion football coach.
As board member Hollis Hood said weeks after the situation festered and public criticism grew: “I don’t think it helps.”
It didn’t — the rollercoaster three weeks finally came to an end Wednesday morning when Fedora told his staff and athletes he was leaving after 11 years.
A week before, after the school board gave Fedora an extension two weeks after the motion never came to a vote, Hood said it remained to be seen if the damage was already done. The extension was done every time before in routine fashion, but a football
coach who led Navasota to a 54-3 record and two titles the last four years, in addition to an athletic director praised for building the entire program, was left out to dry.
Maybe it’s a cautionary tale.
Maybe not.
“What goes on in closed session, I can’t speak about it, but there’s changes coming and I just felt like it was time for a change for my family,” Fedora said. “So that’s the decision I made.” Couldn’t fix mistake
Fedora deciding to leave while acknowledging another job isn’t already solidified doesn’t show well for Navasota.
The school board made a mistake and did what it could to fix it.
Hood said he felt last week cleared up any questions either side had. Once out of a 90-minute closed session, the board got a second motion — it didn’t two weeks prior, resulting in the extension not going to a vote — and doled out a unanimous 7-0 vote.
Taking two weeks was likely the final straw, and now Navasota has to own the fact that it pushed away the best coach it ever had.
Coaches leave, and having a good one means he’ll win but have his name out when jobs open.
Fedora has been tied to many, including a move back home when College Station High School opened or to his alma mater when Jim Slaughter left A&M Consolidated in 2011.
From 2007-15, Navasota averaged 11.4 wins per year, won seven district titles and twice finished 16-0 in winning state championships in 2012 and 2014.
“In retrospect, we should have looked at it differently and talked about it differently,” Hood said. “But I don’t think any of the board members really felt that was going to happen, but it just did and there wasn’t anything you could do about it after the fact.” Reaction not a surprise
Perhaps the school board didn’t expect the firestorm that followed. But in 2016, that’s hard to justify.
Fedora made his decision last week, keeping it under wraps while the basketball teams finished their seasons. He thought about someone else.
Unfortunately, how the school board thought about Fedora and spent these last three weeks will be as much a part of the conversation as the team’s titles, its high-octane offenses and numerous records. And don’t be surprised when potential replacements ask how a coach who went 109-30 got away.
“I’ll tell you this — I’m glad that he stayed here 11 years and he’s gotten the program to a point where I don’t think you can find a better one anywhere,” Hood said. “I really hate to lose him and I really hate to lose him under these circumstances. I would have rather lost him if he did find another place and it wasn’t a sour grape type of thing.”