Crockett Co. loses its offensive coordinator

The work load for Crockett County High head football coach Kevin Ward is about to grow some, but the work load for his now-former offensive coordinator David Barker is about to grow by leaps and bounds.

Barker was announced as the new head coach at Trousdale County after their head coach, Kevin Creasy, took a head coaching job in Murfreesboro earlier this spring.

“David has been an excellent coach and an excellent assistant since I’ve been here,” Ward said Wednesday afternoon. “When I came here [in 2011], he was the first one already on staff that I wanted to make sure stayed.

“He’s been taught by some of the best around here coaching at Union City with Randy Barnes and Jim Fischel then coming to Crockett and coaching with P.A. Pratt.”

Barker didn’t immediately answer calls to his cell phone Wednesday.

Ward said he thinks Barker is prepared to not only be a head coach but lead a program as high profile as Trousdale County with its history of state championships.

“David is one that’s a student of the game and a student of coaching,” Ward said. “He’ll go to coaching clinics and come back with new ideas, and he’s good about calling around to coaches around here and bouncing ideas off them and coming back with stuff he thinks will work here.

“He’s also an assistant that jumps in and tries to do things that normally falls on the head coach, and that’s just part of making sure you’re doing what you can to be ready to take a head coaching job.”

Ward said there’s no hard feelings between him and Barker as he heads to Middle Tennessee.

“I don’t mind telling you we tried to keep him, but this is something he’s dreamed about for years that he couldn’t pass up,” Ward said. “It works out that we have Week 1 open this year and our Week 2 opponent, Westview, plays on Thursday.

“So we’ll be able to go scout Westview on Thursday then a bunch of us coaches right now plan to go over and support him in his first game as a head coach. We might see if we can get one of those big fathead pictures of him and have that with us. But seriously, he’s like a brother to us, and you always hate to see a family member move off, but you want to see him do well. We wish that for David.”

Ward said he’s not sure yet how the next offensive coordinator for the Cavaliers will be chosen.

“It could be somebody on staff or we might bring somebody in,” Ward said. “I don’t know if anybody here wants it yet or not, but we’ll see what happens.”

Brandon Shields, 425-9751