BlueDevil58

GS put something on Facebook this morning calling his assistant coaches a bunch of backstabbers and said they went off on the "activists and protesters" on the team in the postgame speech, blaming them for the loss. That didn't sit well.

If they can't afford tuition, they could transfer to Boone fairly easily. They may be zoned for Crockett, but my friends tell me it's not a big deal for kids in that system to go to schools they're not zoned for. Standout athletes who want to go to a city school system usually don't need to worry much about tuition, anyway. That has a funny way of getting sorted out for them, especially in places like Greenville and Dobyns-Bennett, and after all this I'm betting a lot of parents would be willing to pay tuition to send their kids elsewhere. When parents think their kid is a future scholarship athlete, they'll find a way to get them into bigger and better programs for "exposure." As for star athletes quitting, it's been reported that the Kollie kids didn't practice all week and may have quit. Austin Lewis is graduating. Larkins is about the only one of their real studs who looks to be coming back, and you have to wonder if he won't transfer elsewhere next year. The next coach will be under fire from outsiders wanting to keep the drama going. They'll probably give it to Qualls if he wants to stick around after this.

He's not done fighting yet. He just posted on Facebook to tell people not to go to the game because they parked busses to block the field from people who wanted to watch it from the parking lot for free. "Got a text from one of my players: They have school busses parked I front of the fence so glee can’t watch from the. Parking lot They have to be kidding me. All they want is that $ for the game. Please don’t give them any of your $. The corrupt system is really showing their true colors." Yeah... the school system doesn't want people loitering in a dark parking lot to watch the games for free. Imagine that. I've never seen someone so desperate for drama and attention in my life, even as it comes at the expense of the kids he claims to be fighting for.

Josh Edens might be a nice pick if he wants it. I don't know of any coach alive who'd want to wade into this dumpster fire now, though. Even with GS gone, a huge part of the community will resent the new guy just for not being GS. He's stirred up a lot of bad blood in that community. I can see a bunch of the athletes at Crockett transferring out after this year. If Crockett goes 2-8 next year with the drop in talent and support, the next coach will be "under fire," too.

The TSSAA says that if they can get 12 bodies together, including 5 OL, they can kick off against Tennessee High. It's such a bad situation. I never thought it could this bad.

Most of those funding increases have gone to technology and testing/test prep programs. In the 90s, the internet was just getting started and schools were lucky to have one computer in a classroom. Now the push is to install massive labs and provide each kid with a computer to use throughout the day, as well as expensive educational software for it. That eats up a ton of cash. The standardized testing focus has been part of that, too, as many of them are now done online. Then there are all the rest prep materials fo buy, instructional coaches to hire to try to raise test scores, expensive consultants to hire to do workshops to raise scores, etc. Testing is a behemoth that siphons finding away from textbooks and pulls class time away from extracurriculars and arts classes. Much of the "corruption" you find in education is related to the test industry at the state and federal level in some way.

They're star struck by the NFL pedigree and the "drain the swamp" posturing. Parents and kids really think "playing for an NFL player will lead to becoming an NFL player. "Drain the swamp" is always a great line. It works every time. You don't even need to really know what you're talking about because it just sounds true and people like someone who's fighting for them. His first "letter of guidance" has been released where GS is quoted as screaming at his director of schools and principal that "Crockett is full of neanderthals." He also had Facebook posts where he talked about how the people in Jonesborough were stupid and "just don't know anything." People need to see that he's just using them and their kids to feed his own ego, but they're swept up in the drama now, too. Next week's school board meeting will be circus. They were going to talk about a new school for Jonesborough even as they're talking about shutting down some of the smaller community schools due to declining enrollment. GS's tirades can only push those numbers down further.

"But... but he played in the NFL and says inspirational things... and he's fighting to drain the swamp, too... he has to be the greatest coach ever, right?" GS might as well step down from being coach at Crockett to run for Phil Roe or Bob Corker's seat. He'd win.

GS said he got the money person fired on his Facebook. I wonder who the other suspension is. We have GS and the AD named, but the article doesn't say who the third person is. This whole thing has gone beyond the realm of farce. GS seems to be mentally ill at this point. Telling his supporters he had the support of the school board and would be reinstated immediately, only for the the chairperson to publicly say that decision is out of the board's hands shows there is clearly something wrong with his mental state.

That rule got dropped this year.

That makes sense, but it wouldn't be the first time the board has overruled her on hiring and firing issues due to public outcry.

Nothing. He likes to brag on Facebook about how not being a teacher makes him better than "yes men" teachers who wouldn't stand with him in his crusade to run the school system and get them to magically print money. Seriously, he made tens of millions of dollars in his NFL career. He's set for life. All he does now is coach, fish, and cause a lot of drama via his thousands of followers on social media.

Sensabaugh is telling the media that the school board has called to tell him he has their support to override his suspension and will reinstate him as soon as they can get everyone together to meet. This is the most messed up situation I've ever seen. Either the school district flat out lied and smeared his character as an excuse to dismiss him or GS is untouchable and can get away with anything short of murder due to his celebrity. At this point, I honestly have no clue how this is going to end. http://www.wcyb.com/news/gerald-sensabaugh-talks-about-possible-reinstatement-as-david-crockett-football-coach/636196199

I need to correct myself. The defense was only allowing 23 ppg, which isn't bad in HS ball. Of course, if you take out the two winless teams (Seymour and Volunteer) who can't score on anybody, they were giving up 36 ppg. There were a lot of dumb penalties and strange decisions, though. It was just sloppy.

Now that GS is gone, I am starting to think that Crockett might actually be better off this season, too. It sounds like he wasn't doing much actual coaching at DCHS. He ran the defense that was giving up 40 ppg and made some real weird calls, along with all the distractions and bad blood he was causing. Coach Qualls, the interim coach, ran the offense and will keep that going. Now that GS is gone, I could see players actually enjoying themselves and focusing more on football in the next couple of weeks if they can just put this mess behind them. All the problems are going to hurt them this week against Tennessee High, but beyond that it could be the best thing for them against Boone, Morristown East, and the playoffs.

I could see Crockett going 0-3 over the end of the season after all these distractions and backing into the playoffs, with Morristown East winning 3 in a row to finish at 3-2 in conference, though. Tennessee High and Boone are a lock for the top 2 spots. After that, Morristown East is in the basement, but their last 3 conference games are Volunteer, Cocke County, and Crockett--two of those are very winnable for ME and Crockett is a wildcard at this point. If ME wins out, that puts them at 3-2 in conference with the tie-breaker over Crockett, so East would be the #3 seed and Crockett would be #4, but in freewill. Cherokee's going to be the underdog against Tennessee High and Boone. They'll probably finish 2-4 in conference play and be looking at a 4th seed, at best, depending on what happens with Morristown East. That #4 seed would still get a decent matchup on paper in Region 2, though. That whole conference is wide open, but you have to wonder how much of those records are indicative of those teams being down and how much is due to them just beating up on each other. I'm not ready to write Sevier County, South Doyle, or any of the Knoxville schools off as creampuffs yet, and Crockett's style of play would be something they're familiar with.

Didn't they win the Big 8 a few years ago when Science Hill, Dobyns-Bennett, and Tennessee High were all down? That was right before Stacy Carter went to Science Hill.

He's been trying to get the national media to report on this for days, but so far none of them have bit.

Background checks really only send red flags if you're a convicted felon and GS is not. I know because a friend who taught in another county got stuck with a co-teacher who'd been fired for doing inappropriate things with kids, but since charges were dismissed her background check came back clean... though your could google her name and an article with her picture popped right up relating to the incident. They may have asked him about those arrests just to hear his side of the story, but it was never going to keep him out. Washington Co. wanted GS bad for publicity purposes (the director is obsessed with publicity) and never even seriously looked at other coaches. Boy, did they sure get their publicity...

The posts that got him so much media attention are still on there. He's not letting this go. The players don't want to throw away their season for him. They've shown their support, but now most of them will be getting back to work to prep for Tennessee High in 2 days, then they have 2 more and possibly playoffs left.

That would be beautiful, but he's told people close to him that he really is happy in retirement. He always said that he didn't want to coach into his 60s. He's in his mid-50s now and seems at peace with his decision to step down in interviews. The man has nothing left to prove and is set for life. Chip Kelly would be a good one, too. Outside of the NFL, where he gets the bigger college rosters and doesn't have to worry about running a QB who's getting paid more than every single person in the stadium combined, he'll be successful again. We'll probably hire someone no one has ever heard of from the AAC or MAC so we don't have to pay an SEC salary. That's been the last 2 coaches.

http://www.wcyb.com/news/tennessee/washington-county-tn/update-david-crocketths-athletic-director-on-administrative-leave/635640233 Crockett's AD is now suspended, too, after the allegations of bringing drugs to school and being high at work.

If he wants to coach, he can still become an assistant at the college level pretty easily with his NFL credentials, which would be big for recruiting purposes. But he would probably make less doing that than he was getting at Crockett (seriously... he thinks college coaches get paid millions, but entry level assistants usually need to work 2-3 jobs to get by), and he'd have to follow someone else's lead. He hasn't given any indication that he can do that.

If they can name one of the assistants to an interim coach, I think they can salvage the season without too much trouble. It just depends on how many players walk off in support of Sensabaugh. From that letter, it doesn't sound like too many will go. They should have enough to play the final 3 games, plus a playoff. But this could have potentially been a year where they win 7 or 8 games and go down as a real high point in Crockett football. Now, who knows which kids will stay or leave? It's just a bad, bad situation for those kids. Next year's going to be very weird. GS doesn't seem like the kind of guy who's just going to walk off into the sunset and who knows if all the talent that Crockett's managed to develop won't just get fed up with all the drama and transfer to Greenville, Science Hill, or Boone. Will the community be patient with the coach who has to pick up the pieces and rebuild all the bridges that GS burnt after they've come to finally expect wins from Crockett, or will they throw him under the bus since he could never know football as well as someone who played in the NFL.

There it is. This seals it. The school wouldn't risk a lawsuit to fabricate all that. With so many adults also standing by testimony that GS has done those things, potentially opening themselves up to liability if they were lying, he needs to be canned. I can't say that I'm surprised. I'd heard rumblings out of Crockett for a while that GS was being extremely difficult to work with and that a lot of the players couldn't stand his abrasive style, but not many specifics. Here, there's plenty of them. This also falls in line with the stuff he's put on social media. Put it all together and you get someone who's showing signs of serious mental issues. I don't know too any people supporting GS right now who've actually worked directly with him at DC. Most of his online supporters are just fans who've never met him, along with some old friends from Kingsport. The fact that that GS himself thought it was actually a good idea to leak this to the media speaks volumes about his judgement and fitness to coach at DC than any Facebook spat ever could. But he'll still have his supporters who'll believe it when he tells them it's all lies from "the Good Ol' Boys" trying to shut him up. The Crockett program is a total train wreck now. This season is shot and this kind of thing is going to cause lasting damage to the program that'll linger for years. He's making the team and community take sides. It's awful for those kids, especially those seniors, who worked so hard to get to this point.