Bleckley County continues its search for a football head coach

There were folks who thought there might be some news about a new football head coach coming out of Tuesday night’s Bleckley County board of education meeting.

Those folks were outsiders, because there was no large crowd from the community expecting an announcement.

There was nothing on the agenda regarding a new football head coach, and Bleckley County principal Trey Belflower left the meeting about 20 minutes in to make some presentations at the Royals’ basketball doubleheader with Northeast.

“We are really at the beginning of the process,” Belflower said. “Hopefully, in the next few days, we’ll start interviews and move from there.”

Only a few days after Bleckley County parted ways with head coach Tracy White last month did speculation center on Houston County head coach Von Lassiter, a Bleckley County alum who still has plenty of family in the Cochran area.

Lassiter chuckled last week at the prognostication that him moving to Bleckley County was, as some area coaches said, “ a done deal.”

“I don’t know where that came from,” Lassiter said. But the fourth-year head coach didn’t necessarily dismiss the possibility. “It’s posted, and I really can’t comment on it right now. With these kids here and all, I’d rather wait.

“Understand this. I love it here, I love these kids. Every year I’ve been here — I told them the other day — there have been opportunities. The first thing they know about me is I’m gonna pray about this. I want to be where God wants me to be. Right now, that’s here.”

Belflower said there were 38 official applicants as of Tuesday night, no interviews have taken place, that there was no “done deal” and that he hadn’t targeted any candidate.

“I can’t control rumors,” he said. “Right now, it’s just me and my administrative team. Once we get it narrowed down, we’ll sit down with the superintendent (Steve Smith) and go through what we have, and take his input and we’ll move forward with interviews.”

This story was originally published January 17, 2017 at 8:21 PM with the headline "Bleckley County continues its search for a football head coach."