SHIELDS: Frequent changes have hurt South Side football

Who would've thought alleged recruiting violations in Arkansas high school football would set off the chain of events that have happened in Gibson and Madison counties this week in West Tennessee?

North Little Rock (Ark.) High fired former coach Brad Bolding in February for violations including involving recruiting student-athletes, according to a story reported by CBS television station THV 11, in February.

North Little Rock waited more than two months before announcing Jamie Mitchell as its new head coach. Mitchell came from Starkville (Miss.) High. That move was announced May 5.

Then a little more than two weeks later Starkville hired Ricky Woods, fresh off Trenton Peabody's Class 2A state football championship. The chain reactions seemed to stop there when Peabody principal Tim Haney promoted defensive coordinator Shane Jacobs to head coach.

Then Jacobs convinced his buddy Jason Driggers to leave South Side's head coaching position to be the defensive coordinator for the Golden Tide.

Now the question is where will the next coach at South Side come from?

"Since this became public this morning, I've already heard from people telling me this person could be interested or that person," said South Side principal Anita Tucker. "Obviously we want to make the hire as soon as possible, and we want the right hire."

In this day and age, commitment to the program may be a luxury that will never be truly on the table.

"Coach Driggers was committed to our program," Tucker said. "He planned to bring his son to South Side, and he's in the fifth grade. So he was committed.

"I can get someone in here who tells me they'll commit for 10 years, but we don't know what will happen in the next two or three years. Commitment is not something I'm necessarily looking for in our next coach. I'd like to have it, but you never know what will happen in this business."

Along with replacing Driggers, offensive coordinator Jay Taylor also left to coordinate Peabody's offense. Driggers was a special education teacher, and Taylor teaches math.

"We've got to fill those spots in addition to finding a football coach, but all we know at this point is South Side football will continue on," Tucker said.

Driggers' exit from South Side opens another chapter in a book Hawks football fans have been reading since December 2007.

It's a book none of them wanted to read.

South Side's legendary coach Jerry Hayes announced his retirement at the end of the 2007, and no coach has led the program for more than three years since.

Carey Craig was brought over from a good job at Humboldt as coach and athletic director with a run of athletic talent coming through the program in Gibson County only to be shown the door by then-principal Jimmy Arnold, who apparently took six months to decide a change needed to be made when he was fired in April 2011.

Because of the timing of Arnold's decision, he needed to make a quick hire because spring practice was set to begin less than two weeks after Craig was fired. His choice was to bring Hayes back.

Hayes led the program for two more years, with the Hawks narrowly missing the playoffs the first year because of the Z-Plan with a 5-5 record and then making the postseason in 2012 with a record of 4-6. But he resigned after that season, and Driggers was the man to lead the program into the future.

That is until Driggers was approached from the people in Trenton last week with an opportunity that was very difficult to pass up – too difficult, actually.

"I wasn't looking for this opportunity," Driggers admitted. "I was busy planning [this week] and getting ready to start summer workouts when [Jacobs] called me after Coach Woods resigned asking if I was interested in coming over."

At this point, commitment may not be anything Tucker feels like she can ask for out of the next Hawks coach, but stability is something the program needs.

A decade ago, Hayes had the program rolling, coming close to double-digit win totals nearly every year with a down year or two every now and then when athletes weren't as bountiful as in other years at the school.

Since the 2007 season, the stable platform the program sat on has consistently been on the downslide with nine wins in 2008, followed by win totals of seven, three, five, four, three and last year's one win.

Hopefully for South Side football, the next coach will be one who will get the athletes back out on the football field and have them consistently in the position to win again. Whoever that coach is won't have a lot of time to get a good start this year.

Brandon Shields is the sports editor of The Jackson Sun. Contact him at 425-9751 or at bjshields@jacksonsun.com. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorSports or on Instagram at jacksonsunsports.