On this occasion, the timing appears to be right for Michael Kelly.
After stints as an assistant coach or coordinator at four schools, Kelly is in line to be the next head football coach at Caledonia High School.
On Thursday, Kelly confirmed he has accepted a job offer to end the school’s search for its next coach. He said Caledonia High Principal Andy Stevens offered him the job Tuesday and he accepted it later that night. The job offer is pending approval of the Lowndes County School Board of Trustees, which will meet next July 13.
“My family and I are delighted to get the invite,” said Kelly, who served as defensive coordinator for the past three seasons under Randal Montgomery at Columbus High. “Over the last couple of years I have had interviews for head coaching jobs, and I feel the Lord is leading us in that direction to lead somebody’s program.”
Kelly served as defensive coordinator at Northeast Jones High for two years, as linebackers coach for two years at Laurel High, and as offensive line/outside linebackers coach at Newton County High for five years. He said he had talked to Stevens about the job opening at Caledonia High before Stevens nominated David King to be the school’s new coach. But the Lowndes County School District Board of Trustees voted Friday in a split decision not to hire King, who is facing misdemeanor charges in D’Iberville. King faces charges of careless driving and refusing to submit to a test for driving under the influence. Board members voted not to hire him at the end of a one-hour executive session.
King has worked as assistant football coach and driver’s education instructor at Biloxi High for the last three years. D’Iberville police arrested King at 3:40 a.m. March 2 when he refused to take a DUI test during a traffic stop off Interstate 110, according to a report from The Biloxi Sun Herald.
King has pleaded not guilty to the charges. LCSD board members previously delayed voting on his hire pending his court date at D’Iberville Municipal Court, but went ahead with the vote Friday after King’s court date was continued from May 22 to July 31.
Kelly said he had a “great conversation” with Stevens on Monday and that he is eager to “hit the ground running” because there is plenty of work to be done to install a new system and to get coaches in place.
Kelly said he and his family have been moving toward the possibility of him earning a job as a head football coach. He said the community, facilities, and administration at Caledonia High were factors that made the opportunity even more appealing.
“I have worked under great head coaches who I feel have mentored me well for this opportunity,” Kelly said. “Leading up to this, I have had a few declines and nos this past year, but lo and behold things have a way of working out, and somehow it found its way back to us.”
Kelly said he isn’t afraid of starting as head coach in the middle of June. He said Stevens and the LCSD have worked with him to identify assistant coaches to expedite the transition. Kelly feels he has good coaches coming in who will help get the players ready for Aug. 10, which is the team’s jamboree date.
“I look to bring stability to the program,” Kelly said. “Those kids who lay it on the line have to know the guy in this seat is going to be there each and every day. … We are going to be blue-collar, hard workers. I think that is the kind of kids we have and what that community is made up of. I want to embrace that need and those kind of kids and the background they come from and use that to our advantage.”
Montgomery, who is serving as an assistant coach/head coaching in waiting to M.C. Miller at Louisville High, doesn’t think Kelly’s personality will change as he moves from assistant to head coach.
“Coach Kelly is going to do a phenomenal job there,” Montgomery said. “I think it is a great situation for him. He is about as hard a worker as you will find in this profession. He is one of the most prepared guys I have ever had the privilege to work with. The kids are never going to go into a ballgame Friday unprepared. He is going to hold them accountable and coach them hard, and they are going to know what is going on Friday night.”
Stevens feels confident Caledonia High has found its new coach and several other key additions to the football team’s coaching staff. One of those men is former Hamilton High football coach Ray Weeks.
Stevens said Kelly and Weeks will be at the school at 7 a.m. Monday when it re-opens the weight room to begin preparations for the 2018 football season.
“I think we have gotten lucky with coach Kelly,” Stevens said. “He has been with some good programs at Laurel and at Northeast Jones. … He has been around it for a while and he is passionate about it. You can tell.”
Stevens said he isn’t sure if the Columbus Municipal School District will let Kelly out of the contract he signed to be a teacher and an assistant football coach at the school. He said it is kind of an “understood process” that schools allow teachers/coaches out of signed contracts if they leave one situation to better themselves financially or to take a higher position.
The job offer to Kelly could end a saga that began when Ricky Kendrick resigned as Caledonia High’s football coach following the 2017 season. Tim Nickens, a former assistant football coach at New Hope High, was hired to replace Kendrick, but Nickens resigned midway through the spring football season. He declined to comment about he reasons for resigning. Caledonia then attempted to hire King.
Stevens said Thursday he felt Caledonia High “lucked out” when King accepted a job offer to be its football coach, but he is happy to have someone in place to end the uncertainty. He said he texted Kelly on Sunday about the job and that he also talked with Lowndes County Schools Superintendent Lynn Wright about Kelly.
Stevens said he hopes to have Kelly, Weeks, and two other new assistant coaches in the high school when the 2018-19 school year begins. He said he and the new coaches will address the program’s next steps with the players Monday morning.
“It is kind of late (for a new coach to be starting), but when I took my first job at New Hope in 1995 it was after July 4,” said Stevens, who was head coach at New Hope from 1995-98. “We picked up and moved on and had a winning season (6-5) with 30 kids in 4A, so it can be done.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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