Grovetown postpones search until after season

If you haven't already applied for Grovetown High School's open athletic director and football coach positions, a few months remain to touch up those resumes.

//

And yes, the jobs are still open.

When Rodney Holder announced in the spring he'd be stepping down as Greenbrier's baseball coach for a shot at Grovetown High, which will open in 2009, many assumed the deal was done.

"Based on a possibility, is all it is," Holder said at the time.

Some took that to mean the contract was inked.

But Penny Jackson, who will be Grovetown's first principal, has yet to post the job ads.

Jackson originally planned to fill the positions by October, but she decided to postpone the search until after football season so that coaches who have applied would not be distracted.

The jobs will be posted on the county's Web site at the beginning of November, and Jackson hopes to have the positions filled by Dec. 1, she said.

"The job is still wide open," Jackson said. "No one has interviewed. Rodney has done nothing more than 30 other people have done, which is express interest and send his rsum in."

You get the feeling Jackson is speaking straight -- not engaging in the double-talk that sometimes surrounds this type of situation.

Holder might be the best guy for both jobs. But Jackson said she received more than two dozen rsums without having posted the positions. And when the jobs go public, Jackson will ask those who have already applied to do so again.

A lot might have changed since April.

The positions will be posted separately. One person could take on both jobs, but Jackson said the evolution of athletic director duties has made it difficult for one to wear multiple hats.

"I'm wide open to it, but it takes a special person to be able to effectively do an AD and head football coaching position," she said. "Football itself takes up an enormous amount of time. And now the AD position -- literally, they're an extension of the administration."

Once the AD and football coach are in place, the other coaching slots will be filled based on which teachers put in for a transfer in January. Coaches will be selected based first on what they teach and, if slots still remain, they will then be advertised.

"It's a very complicated system, I've come to find out," Jackson said.

Augusta Prep still searching

Augusta Prep is still on the lookout for a coach to build its first football program.

The school will hold football clinics for its students in grades 2-8 from Sept. 3 until Nov. 5 to try to drum up interest.

Cavaliers athletic director Tom Holodak said he's confident the school would lock up the best coach possible. His goal is to start a middle school program and, possibly, expand to a junior varsity squad in the coming years.

"It's a five-year process," Holodak said of building a football program. "You might try to expedite it quick. But, realistically, we don't have 1,000 kids in our school ... in two years we can do it."