Mike Woodward's future at Antioch still up in the air
This past week has been a rollercoaster for Antioch football coach Mike Woodward, and the ride’s not quite over yet.
On Friday afternoon, first-year Antioch principal Keiva Wiley informed Woodward that he would no longer be the school’s football coach. A couple days later, however, he learned otherwise.
“There have been meetings going on between the administration and coach trying to get things worked out,” Metro Nashville Public Schools athletic director Roosevelt Sanders said on Tuesday. “There is supposed to be a follow-up meeting on Thursday, and then there will be a statement from the principal. That’s kind of where we are right now.”
Repeated attempts made to reach Wiley were unsuccessful. Woodward, who confirmed that he was told he had been fired last Friday, declined to comment further.
Woodward, who led the Bears to a 3-8 record in his first season back at the struggling Southeast Nashville program, returned to Antioch last April after three years away — two spent as head coach at Brentwood (2013-14) and one as an assistant at Overton (2015).
And while Antioch was nowhere close to being considered a title contender, anyone who’d witnessed the Beards’ miserable 2015 campaign — one in which they were outscored 396-76 en route to the program’s first winless season since 1971 — could see improvement.
“I made the choice to come back here because I love Antioch, I love the kids here and I wanted to get the program back to where it was a few years ago,” said Woodward, who compiled a 38-39 record with five playoff appearances during his first stint with the Bears (2006-12). “I felt like we were on the right track, and this offseason had been great. The guys have been working tremendously hard, and I was very excited to see that translate onto the field during spring practice and next season.”
Wiley will release a statement regarding the school’s football coaching situation Thursday at 2:30 p.m., according to Sanders.
ReachMichael Murphy atmfmurphy@tennessean.com, 615-259-8262 and on Twitter@Murph_TNsports.