By Kevin Eckleberry

Sports Editor

Especially while there’s still football to be played, LaGrange head football coach Steve Pardue doesn’t take much time to dwell on a win, or a loss for that matter.

There is, after all, always another game to prepare for.

The victory over Stephens County two weeks ago was an exception.

That win was Pardue’s 150th as a head coach at LaGrange High, a significant milestone in the career of a head coach.

The landmark victory came in Pardue’s 16th season at LaGrange, meaning his teams have averaged about 10 wins a year.

Overall, Pardue is 151-37 at LaGrange with eight region titles and state championships in 2001, 2003 and 2004.

“I’m proud of (reaching 150),” Pardue said Thursday afternoon from his office at LaGrange High. “We’ve had really good players, and really good coaches, and great support from the administration. I think it takes all of those things.”

Pardue joined the LaGrange coaching staff in 1991 when the Grangers won a state title, and he became the head Granger in 1994 after Danny Guthrie left after 10 years.

Pardue’s tenure began modestly enough with a 5-5 season in 1994 and a 6-4 record in 1995, but beginning in 1996 when they went 11-1, the Grangers have won big nearly every year.

The exception came in 1999 when the Grangers went 2-8, laying the groundwork for the 11-1 team in 2000.

This decade has been especially lucrative for Pardue’s Grangers, who have gone 109-14 with the three state titles.

From 2000 through 2004, the Grangers went 67-3, including an 18-2 mark in the playoffs.

Pardue has no plans to hang up his whistle, but reaching a milestone victory did give him cause to reflect a bit on his nearly 20 years at the school.

“Obviously I’m not ready for it to end, but I guess what something like this does is make you think a little bit about where time goes. It’s flown by,” said Pardue, an early-riser who usually gets to the school about 5 a.m. “I’ve seen Tommy Traylor go from being our ballboy, to our kicker, to our sideline reporter. It’s been exciting.”

Pardue, a Kentucky native who played football at Austin Peay University, had three coaching stops before ending up at LaGrange.

He was an assistant coach at Fayette County High and Albertville (Ala.) High before spending four seasons as the head coach at Crittendon High in Kentucky.

Pardue had planned on eventually returning to Georgia to coach, and he landed at LaGrange in 1991 as a linebackers coach.

He coached the offensive line in 1992 before becoming the defensive coordinator a year later.

Guthrie left to become the head coach at Rome High in 1994, and he wanted to take Pardue with him.

But Pardue and wife Pam decided to remain in LaGrange, and he was eventually offered the head-coaching position.

He accepted, and the rest is history.

Pardue gives a lot of credit for the program’s success to a coaching staff that has, in a profession where turnover is the norm, remained remarkably intact.

Offensive coordinator David Traylor and defensive coordinator Donnie Branch have both been on the coaching staff before Pardue arrived.

Long-time assistant coach Thomas Crocker did step down this season to focus on his family, but he is still a big part of the program, Pardue said.

“You look at Thomas, he’s still such a valuable part,” Pardue said. “He helps me on the day-to-day deal. He’s still involved during the school day helping us out.”

Many of the other coaches have been in place for the better part of this decade.

“I had a friend who retired, and he was at a deal where he was having to replace about four or five coaches every year,” he said. “Really, what got to him was having to replace those coaches.

“It has been a luxury we’ve had, being able to keep those guys. We all get along really well. We need to be thankful for that.”

Pardue, who coaches the running backs, appreciates not having to be a micro-manager.

“I’m not having to look over somebody’s shoulder,” he said. “I know the work’s going to get done. I have tremendous trust in all these coaches.”

Pardue said he has always tried to focus on the “big picture.”

Even while trying to make the most out of the 2009 season, he has one eye on 2010 when he’s making personnel decisions.

The Grangers have been able to win consistently largely because the new players who step into the lineup don’t need much time to acclimate to varsity football.

They hit the ground running, and that’s not an accident.

“When I was young, I read that (former Valdosta coach Wright Bazemore) said that he’s always tried to coach next year’s team this year,” Pardue said. “I’ve tried to adhere to that a little bit as far as where we put the backups.

“Luckily, having (Traylor and Branch), they look at that stuff, too. We kick ideas off each other about personnel moves. That helps us with the consistency we’ve had.”

As successful as the past 16 years have been, Pardue said he probably remembers the losses more than the victories.

“Those 37, I can about tell you about everyone of those,” he said. “Those stay with you a little bit longer.”

Pardue is proud, though, that most of those losses have come against teams that were clearly better than LaGrange.

With few exceptions, the Grangers have always won the games they should have won, and they’ve probably won more than a few games they shouldn’t have.

“When you get to that game, you need to know you did everything you can,” Pardue said. “If we prepare all year and all week and the other team beats us, you just shake their hand, go to the house, go back to work and try to get better.

“We’ve been fortunate not to have many where we weren’t prepared, where they out-worked us. You don’t want that feeling.”

One thing Pardue didn’t have to worry about when he became the head coach was convincing the players they could win.

At a school with nearly a century-long record of success, the players who wear the LaGrange uniform have always believe they’re going to win.

“If we play the Green Bay Packers, they believe they’re going to win,” Pardue said. “It’s not just talk. They really believe it.”

Pardue also believes his Christian faith has helped him be a better coach.

A member of First Baptist Church on the Square, Pardue said he and many of the other coaches wear their faith “on our sleeves.”

“That’s been as responsible for our success as anything we do, I really believe that,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re the hardest-hitting or the fastest-running, but I guarantee we’re one of the prayingest teams in the state.”

Pardue has had plenty of opportunities to coach elsewhere, including a tempting offer to become a coach at the University of Kentucky.

In the end, LaGrange is his home.

It’s where he and his wife Pam raised their daughter, Morgan, who is now studying nursing at LaGrange College.

And it’s where their son, Chas, is an eighth-grader at Gardner Newman Middle School.

“It always comes back to me and my family are very happy here,” Pardue said.

The next milestone for Pardue could come in a few years.

The legendary Oliver Hunnicutt, who coached at LaGrange High for 27 years and won two state championships, won 173 games.

Pardue is 21 games off of that pace, meaning the big moment could come in 2011, or possibly even next fall.

Pardue is humbled to even be mentioned in the same conversation as the late  Hunnicutt, who is a member of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.

“I definitely don’t feel like I should be mentioned with his name,” Pardue said.