Teams bring in new coaches

Published 12:38 pm Friday, April 17, 2020

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A new-look coaching staff is falling into place for LaGrange High’s football program.

The hiring of a pair of coaches, Burton Thomas and Matt Neighbors, was approved during a meeting of the Troup County School Board on Thursday.

Thomas and Neighbors will be a part of a staff being put together by Matt Napier, LaGrange’s first-year head coach.

Thomas, who has been at Callaway High the past few seasons and was the linebackers coach last year, will be LaGrange’s new defensive coordinator, and he’ll also be the school’s wrestling coach.

Neighbors, who had a previous stint as a coach at LaGrange High, will be the team’s offensive coordinator, and he’ll also be the recruiting coordinator.

Neighbors was the quarterbacks’ coach at LaGrange before coaching the running backs at Callaway for two seasons, and he was at Mount Zion last season.

TROUP: Will McPherson has been hired as Troup’s linebackers coach.

McPherson, the son of former Lowndes head coach Randy McPherson, has previously coached at Camden County, Worth County, Cook County and Lee County.

McPherson was at Lee County when the team won the Class AAAAAA state championship in 2018.

CALLAWAY: When Matt Napier left to become LaGrange High’s new head coach, that created an opening for an offensive coordinator at Callaway.

Zach Giddens, whose father Claude Giddens was a former head coach at Callaway, has been hired to fill that role.

Giddens, who was a quarterback at LaGrange High, comes to Callaway from East Coweta where he was an assistant football coach and the head lacrosse coach.

Claude Giddens was Callaway’s head coach from 2002 to 2004, and he led the team to the state playoffs his first two seasons.

Pete Wiggins took over as head coach in 2005.