Perry hires Smith as football head coach
Stability and sustained success in Perry football have not been norm.
Stability and sustained success are all Kevin Smith knows.
Perry hopes that everything about Smith’s career continues in his new position as head coach of the Panthers, the program’s seventh head coach since 2000.
New principal Del Martin was an assistant principal at Houston County and got to know Smith.
“Any time I work with people, I observe,” Martin said. “And I see certain traits with different people. He’s always been good with building relationships, with students, with parents, with the stakeholders.”
Mention the word “stability” and Martin’s eyes light up even more.
“That’s something we need,” Martin said. “We want that stability, and we want really to take the program to the level Perry’s capable of being. Coming from two successful programs, in his time, he’s shown some true character of what it takes to build a program. He’s seen what it takes to win and to be successful.”
Smith, 47, was approved Tuesday at the regular Houston County Board of Education meeting with no discussion. Within two hours, he had 93 texts and 15 phone calls.
The announcement came 11 months after the board approved another county assistant coach to take over as a head coach when then-Houston County assistant Mike Chastain was awarded the head coaching job at Warner Robins.
Smith is another branch of the Northside football tree. Chastain graduated from Northside, and Smith was an assistant with the Eagles for nearly 20 years under head coaches Conrad Nix and Kevin Kinsler.
“Coach Nix, and Coach Kinsler, that’s stability,” Smith said. “I bring stability.”
Smith graduated from Jacksonville State and got his masters degree from Alabama. He was an assistant at Griffin for two years before joining the Northside staff. In his 18 seasons at Northside, the LaGrange native mostly coached the defensive line and was also the defensive coordinator when he left after the 2013 season to join the Houston County staff as defensive line coach.
In all those years, Smith — who applied for the job two years ago when Perry promoted assistant Carl Dixon to succeed Erik Soliday — has failed to be part of a playoff team only three times, twice at Griffin in his first job out of college and 2016 at Houston County, which also broke a streak of 18 years of being on a team that won at least 10 games.
Superintendent Mark Scott is well aware of Perry’s coaching roller coaster as well as Smith’s preference to not jump around to new jobs.
“One of the things that stood out to us was his loyalty to the school system,” Scott said. “He’s been here 20-plus years. We’re looking for stability, and we think that’s important for Perry High School.
“Kevin’s a great person. He’s experienced winning, been in winning programs. He’s got that pedigree.”
Scott said about 50 coaches applied and 16 were interviewed last Wednesday, and four finalists — Houston County assistant Ryan Crawford confirmed being one, and according to sources, the other two were former head coach and Coffee assistant Milan Turner — who was an assistant at Warner Robins in the early 2000s and has an 89-22 record as a head coach at ECI and Thomson — and former Macon County and Brunswick head coach Larry Harold — were interviewed again Friday.
Lassiter now must replace “the best defensive line coach I’ve ever worked with,” but the football acumen may not be Smith’s biggest impact.
“He’s always done a good job of building relationships with guys, making sure they knew he cared about them,” said Lassiter, who worked under Smith in his first stint at Northside. “That’s where it all starts, how you can build relationships with those guys, how they can understand that you care about them (for) more than just football.
“Kevin will bring that to the table over there, and I think that’ll be good for them.”
In fact, Smith posted two pictures the past few days on Twitter of him with two former Northside players, Will Thompson and Austin Roberts, as Smith visited Roberts and Oklahoma at the Sugar Bowl.
One aspect of Smith’s philosophy that Lassiter liked was the ability to use many players, including some Lassiter admitted being skeptical of potential contributions.
“Kevin’s got just an uncanny knack about finding a lot of guys, guys that you might think would never play, and get them to be able to contribute somehow,” Lassiter said. “He’ll get them where they can play 16-18 snaps a game.
“Sometimes you look at some of the guys he wants, and you’re like, ain’t no way. And they end up contributing, and having good seasons.”
Smith developed that early in his career, when he followed Tommy Gilstrap and Tom Hall from Griffin to Northside, and talked to then-principal Ed Dyson.
“Mr. Dyson would always say, ‘Now, Kevin, this is the best you’re gonna get, ain’t nobody else moving in; what you take with this group and what you do with them is what you’re going to get out of them,’ ” Smith said. “I have always taken that approach. I took that with me when I went to (Houston County). I started playing guys and repping guys.”
He also cited the increase in spread offenses — like the one he’s leaving — that rush to the line and can get off more snaps, putting more pressure on a defense.
“Three or four defensive linemen can’t go out there and play that many snaps,” he said. “That’s what happened to Alabama (Monday) night. Clemson had 99 plays on offense. Alabama only had 60 plays on offense.”
Smith spent a few hours with Martin after the announcement and will talk with the current staff before he starts making any personnel moves. Scott said new head coaches can bring in coordinators, but after that, football openings only follow teaching openings, and Perry has been stable in retaining teachers.
Neverthless, Smith already had on a Perry shirt, which was then on display at the Panthers’ home basketball games Tuesday night. And he’ll get a look at some potential players.
“Perry’s always had good-looking athletes; I’ve competed against them since I’ve been in the county,” Smith said. “What really attracted me is, there’s a lot of pressure to win, but ... now, it’s not like taking over at Northside, where you better win 10 games a year.
“But I’m here to establish that. You win, and it’s going to get that excitement going, and the expectation level is going to rise every year.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2017 at 2:45 PM with the headline "Perry hires Smith as football head coach."