Vernon High head football coach, Willie Spears, had a rare achievement yesterday on National Signing Day, the first day high school seniors can sign binding football scholarship offers.
All of his seniors will attend college next year on scholarship, 10 will play football on the collegiate level.
“We did our job,” Coach Spears said in an interview with WJHG. “Part of my job description is help each athlete and student accomplish their goals. Not just to win football games, not just to teach them plays, but to help them socially, even spiritually, academically, athletically.”
The coach said he contacted nearly 100 colleges on the behalf of his student athletes, finding schools for each of them.
Spears was the winning head football coach at Escambia High School, until he was dismissed in 2014 by Superintendent Malcolm Thomas over a dispute regarding the alleged recruitment of a player.
An overflow crowd of Escambia High students, teachers and parents attended the September 2014 school board meeting to fight for Spears to be allowed to stay at Escambia High. Over the course of four hours, they asked the superintendent to use progressive discipline in how he dealt with Spears and to keep the coach at the school, including 17 ministers from the Baptist Ministers Union. Read more.
The School Board voted 3-2 to uphold Thomas’ decision.
Escambia County’s loss has been a huge gain for Vernon High.