Potter out at HVA

[MichaelMyers76]

On 11/3/2021 at 11:08 AM, RedFred said:

i can't imagine it's that simple.

It is not. People on the outside think you just hire a guy and name a position, but it doesn't work that way.

Schools are allocated a number of teaching positions based on student enrollment. 

ISS "teachers" are not salaried employees, they are hourly employees or paid by the day like a substitute.

You do not use up a full time teaching position on a spot that may or may not have kids on a given day.

There are a LOT of moving parts to running a school that have nothing to do with athletics, but instead have everything to do with being a SCHOOL.

[thefox]

30 minutes ago, HTV said:

Actually they don't.  Coaches are hired on a year to year basis.  A new coach - or an existing coach -  can decide who he does and doesn't want to retain as part of his coaching staff.  

If they are a teacher in the system, they can keep their teaching jobs, however.  

Two totally different positions.  

You really aren't as smart as you think you are.  

True true. But is the new coach just going to fire the current assistants without teaching jobs to hire new ones into? I don't think so Lieutenant Dan! As insane as that might sound it's not as insane as you 

[MichaelMyers76]

There are 5 assistants listed with TSSAA. 

4 are full time teachers, one a classified employee with the district. No non-faculty coaches were listed.

[HTV]

1 hour ago, MichaelMyers76 said:

It is not. People on the outside think you just hire a guy and name a position, but it doesn't work that way.

Schools are allocated a number of teaching positions based on student enrollment. 

ISS "teachers" are not salaried employees, they are hourly employees or paid by the day like a substitute.

You do not use up a full time teaching position on a spot that may or may not have kids on a given day.

There are a LOT of moving parts to running a school that have nothing to do with athletics, but instead have everything to do with being a SCHOOL.

And you probably know that many who coach in Knox County don't actually teach/work at the school where they coach.  They find jobs at other schools (elementary, middle, alternative, etc.) where their certification is and then coach where they are hired to coach.  

Plus the non certified positions.  

Knox County isn't an easy place to hire coaches, but there are ways to build a staff.  

[5AfballFan]

2 hours ago, HTV said:

Actually they don't.  Coaches are hired on a year to year basis.  A new coach - or an existing coach -  can decide who he does and doesn't want to retain as part of his coaching staff.  

If they are a teacher in the system, they can keep their teaching jobs, however.  

Two totally different positions.  

You really aren't as smart as you think you are.  

Any coach that knows anything about building a strong HS program isn’t going to clean house and bring in his own staff. Some sense of consistency and stability is important. Some of the best programs around have assistant coaches that have outlasted a number of head coaches. Of course a few will leave, but many will stay. West, for example, has several coaches that were there prior to Brown and Harig. 
I am hoping both get a good one. Would love for HVA and Bearden to be good, fun, competitive (out of division) West Knox rivals for West.

Edited November 4, 2021 by 5AfballFan

[HTV]

10 minutes ago, 5AfballFan said:

Any coach that knows anything about building a strong HS program isn’t going to clean house and bring in his own staff. Some sense of consistency and stability is important. Some of the best programs around have assistant coaches that have outlasted a number of head coaches. Of course a few will leave, but many will stay. West, for example, has several coaches that were there prior to Brown and Harig. 
I am hoping both get a good one. Would love for HVA and Bearden to be good, fun, competitive (out of division) West Knox rivals for West.

You pretty much contradicted the point you were trying to make.  

That program has had neither consistency (or at least positive, anyway) nor stability in quite some time, now.   

If there isn't change needed then why even replace the head coach?   Was he the entire issue? 

Sometimes it's necessary to clean house and completely start from scratch. 

[5AfballFan]

8 minutes ago, HTV said:

You pretty much contradicted the point you were trying to make.  

That program has had neither consistency (or at least positive, anyway) nor stability in quite some time, now.   

If there isn't change needed then why even replace the head coach?   Was he the entire issue? 

Sometimes it's necessary to clean house and completely start from scratch. 

You must not follow West football very closely… 

[edwardblake]

5 minutes ago, HTV said:

You pretty much contradicted the point you were trying to make.  

That program has had neither consistency (or at least positive, anyway) nor stability in quite some time, now.   

If there isn't change needed then why even replace the head coach?   Was he the entire issue? 

Sometimes it's necessary to clean house and completely start from scratch. 

You may feel that way but it's unlikely that happens. Whoever is hired will interview the current assistants and will keep all the ones he feels can help him at the varsity level. There may be some pieces moved around but it will be the same voices running the program. The new head coach's job will be to bring some new ideas and approaches and to sell the current assistants that vision. That is exactly what Lamar did. Most of the assistants at West had been there and had success at that school but he came in with his own flavor. Hardin Valley and the assistants that are there had a good amount of consistency with Wes Jones. It just so happened they didn't have enough lineman and athletes during Potter's tenure.

[HTV]

2 hours ago, edwardblake said:

You may feel that way but it's unlikely that happens. Whoever is hired will interview the current assistants and will keep all the ones he feels can help him at the varsity level. There may be some pieces moved around but it will be the same voices running the program. The new head coach's job will be to bring some new ideas and approaches and to sell the current assistants that vision. That is exactly what Lamar did. Most of the assistants at West had been there and had success at that school but he came in with his own flavor. Hardin Valley and the assistants that are there had a good amount of consistency with Wes Jones. It just so happened they didn't have enough lineman and athletes during Potter's tenure.

Lamar at West was in a completely different situation.  There wasn't a lot of staff change between Cummings to Harig because it was a proved staff and it wasn't broken and didn't need to be fixed.  Several of those guys were with Cummings during the state championship run, they stayed thru Harig, and they are still there.  And now that Kevin Lane is back, it's even more so that core staff. Those guys won football games. 

HVA has won 13 total games in the last 4 years, only 3 in the past 2 years.  I'm not saying that there aren't some guys on that staff that and that none will be retained, and in fact there are a couple that I know that are really good football coaches.  But the reality is that with the current staff there has been zero success in the last 4 years, not even a competitive status, and for a school that's either the largest or second largest in Knox County, there is just no excuse for that.  

Like I said, the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.  Things have to change.  

Mr. Speas is a smart guy, and with his Fulton background he's seen what it takes to build a successful football program.  He'll get it right.  

Edited November 4, 2021 by HTV

[BarneySox2007]

Maybe Wes Jones saw mediocre coming full steam ahead and got off the ship before it tanked on him especially since being the only head coach from the beginning.. He had a good 2016 season followed by a 5-5 and 6-5 years. I've seen a lot of coaches that had a gut feeling what was coming down the road and moved on. Be hard to live with winning 9 games in 2016 and then losing 9 in 2021 especially if you were the doctor that delivered this baby to begin with.

[coachspanky]

10 hours ago, BarneySox2007 said:

Maybe Wes Jones saw mediocre coming full steam ahead and got off the ship before it tanked on him especially since being the only head coach from the beginning.. He had a good 2016 season followed by a 5-5 and 6-5 years. I've seen a lot of coaches that had a gut feeling what was coming down the road and moved on. Be hard to live with winning 9 games in 2016 and then losing 9 in 2021 especially if you were the doctor that delivered this baby to begin with.

Him leaving had more to do with family......................

[HTV]

1 hour ago, coachspanky said:

Him leaving had more to do with family......................

Yep. Wife is from Tri-Cities and they wanted to get back closer to family.  

Wes is a good guy, and he was the perfect choice to build a program from scratch and he had them to a semi competitive state when he left.