Coaches buck trend with long stays on job
Jimmy Buckridge never aspired to be a head football coach.
Scott Perry knew he wanted to be a high school history teacher.
As a teen, Matt Hedrick felt he possessed qualities that someday might fit the coaching profession.
Together they enter the 2019 season, which kicks off Friday, with a combined 52 years of head coaching experience at their respective schools. No other head coaches in the Orlando area have been with their current programs as long.
“I knew when I was pretty young as a high school player that I wanted to be involved in football, and probably coaching,” said Hedrick, who played at Mount Dora High. “I had some great coaches that I really liked a lot and had some great respect for. They motivated me and inspired me.”
Hedrick, 49, is in his 18th season as head coach at Bishop Moore. He worked under six different coaches as a Hornets assistant from 1993 through 2001 before being thrust into the lead role on the eve of the 2002 season.
He’s been rolling with that responsibility ever since.
“I can’t think of a whole lot of other things that I’d rather be doing,” said Hedrick. “I just love this place. It’s suited me and my family and my lifestyle, and I really don’t feel like I’ve ever had to go to work. It’s always been that way for me.”
Perry, 46, enters his 15th season at Lake Mary, where he graduated in 1992. He played for the Rams under then-coach Doug Peters, who later became athletic director, and assistant coach Larry Brown.
“Both of those guys were great leaders and mentors for me,” said Perry, who coached a year at Princeton between his early high school stints as an assistant for Lake Howell and Neptune Beach Fletcher. “I love being at Lake Mary. When you’ve got an administration that’s supportive, it makes your job a lot easier and a lot more palatable. It’s like coming to work with family every day.”
That sort of camaraderie is what led Buckridge, 54, to interview for the opening at newly built Timber Creek in 2001. He threw his hat in the ring after spending 11 years as an assistant coach at Boone, Oak Ridge and Orlando University.
Buckridge is now in his 19th season as head coach for the Wolves, which marks the longest current tenure at one school in the area. It’s been nearly two decades since he and other administrators made the move from University to Timber Creek as it opened as an east Orange County relief school in the Avalon Park community.
“We thought opening a new school would be pretty cool,” said Buckridge. “I decided to interview for the job to at least see what [the process] was like. I never really thought about being a head coach. It was just the right opportunity and kind of fell in my lap.”
Buckridge has since coached his son, Connor, a 2013 Timber Creek grad, and brought him on as an assistant coach. He’s also added former Boone and Hagerty head coach Phil Ziglar in a move that’s a bit of a nod to the past.
Ziglar, who retired from teaching in December after 43 years, gave Buckridge his first coaching job at his high school alma mater, Boone, in 1990.
University has had seven different head coaches since Buckridge left the Cougars to fill that role at Timber Creek. Olympia, which opened the same year Timber Creek did, has had five head coaches during Buckridge’s tenure.
Of the 65 football programs throughout Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Lake and southwest Volusia counties, just 20 head coaches have been at their current schools for six years or more.
Winter Park’s Tim Shifflet and The First Academy’s Leroy Kinard enter their 13th season at those schools. Brad Lord is in year No. 12 at Foundation Academy. Marlin Roberts is in his 11th season at Gateway and Jacob Doss is in his 10th at Windermere Prep.
A common thread in the cases of Buckridge, Perry and Hedrick is the presence of longtime athletic directors and principals above them.
Timber Creek’s Jim Priest and Bishop Moore’s Mike Malatesta have been in place as AD’s since Buckridge and Hedrick were hired. As was Peters at Lake Mary until he stepped away from that role over the summer.
“Support from the administration is the biggest thing,” said Perry. Buckridge agrees. “Administration has been really good to me and my staff,” he said. “They support us, and we’ve got good kids that buy into what we’re doing.”
It’s the type of recipe that makes the thought of coaching well into their 60s seem plausible, much like Ziglar or Orangewood Christian coach Bill Gierke, a 37-year head coach. Gierke previously ran programs at Evans, Dr. Phillips and Edgewater.
“I feel like I’ve been fortunate. I like it every day and enjoy it for the most part,” Hedrick said of being a coach. “I think it’s a noble profession if it’s done the right way.”