BillTetley

if you had any familiarity at all with this man outside of your furious googling, you would see it as an exceptional hire in every regard.

yeah... quite the conspiracy ya'll have on your hands there....

I don't have to justify the hire... you did by placing your trust in people that you elected to the Garrison school board, who hired the Superintendent who, collectively, voted in YOUR proxy to make this hire. I applaud you for that.

if you are indeed in Garrison, which i suspect you are not, then you'd do better by your kids by supporting this man rather than trying to run the man down before he's set foot in the town.

that's all fine and good, but the best thing for you all to do as a community is to realize that whether you like how it happened or not, you ended up with a home run hire and you should all put that to rest and start moving in the same direction. Sometimes communities don't understand that conversations like this end up at the dinner table and undercut your new head coach before he's ever set foot on campus. If you truly want the best for ND, throw your weight behind this guy and let him go to work.

I'm telling you... the guy can flat out Coach, and he manages to do this without it being at the expense of character. Your kids will be put to work harder than they thought possible, but they will come out of it better young men for it. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about anyway, helping these young people find themselves and learn to earn their way in life. If that can be achieved, the wins will come.

I'm glad to hear that. He is great at what he does and will be great for those kids.

again... the point is that everyone was a coordinator at some point. But to your point, sometimes you have to put these things into context. Some situations are complete non winners. Some situations started out as winners and things outside your control made them non winners. In a small school setting this can be something that seems relatively minor, like 3 or 4 injuries... well a whole season can be wrecked if those 3 or 4 are your best kids! Some of you will read that and say, well that's obvious... yeah, it is. Little things for big schools are huge things for small ones. In many cases it takes being in the school system to understand that rationale. They (supes, school boards) see and hear the true stories, and in many cases are willing to look past those things in favor of qualities of men that we value in dealing with our youth, and that's hard to argue with.

seriously??? come on people... this was as better hire than ND could have even hoped for. You're telling me that a guy with 5 state titles that WANTS to come to new diana high school of all places is not a blessing? Get outta here with that nonsense. This guy can flat out coach, and he will absolutely give ND it's best chance at righting the ship. His pedigree is second to none, he's a model citizen, a great family man, and is a Christian. Sounds terrible.

some of ya'll are missing the fact that EVERY HC has been a successful OC or DC SOMEWHERE. Nobody gets a head coaching degree and is whisked away to the magical world of head coaching. Like it or not, your school board, elected by your community in their good faith to make decisions based on merit, along with the supe, who was hired by the people who were elected by the people of your community, made a decision that you happen to disagree with. I'd say if you have an issue with it, then you should run for the school board. It's easy to criticize when you had nothing to do with the process.

All due respect to the other candidates, as I'm sure Coach Strickland was an outstanding candidate, Larry Prince is an outstanding individual and a great football coach. The truth is he's been in some tough situations the last few years in regards to talent level. He's the last HC to take Bandera to the playoffs, and then the talent dropped off the table like you can't imagine, just in time for a new district to be put in place. At Dawson, they improved each year he was there while having almost nothing to work with. In the end, what you have is a great football mind, coupled with a man that will be a role model for Garrison's kids, will promote ALL athletic programs, push academics, and is certainly a man of God. Garrison will be proud of this hire very soon.