Published: December 19, 2007 03:12 pm            

Underwood’s job was a tough one at East Central

DECATUR — On Tuesday afternoon, the Terry Underwood era ended at East Central Community College with little fanfare.

The situation was simple yet complicated. It’s been years since Underwood produced a winner on the field at East Central. The reason why he’s gone are simple but the reasons for the losses are complicated and ones that whomever inherits the program will have to face.

There are plenty of people “close to the program” that say it was time for Underwood to leave, that he had plenty of opportunity to be successful. For the most part, I disagree.

Instead of judging Underwood on his 2007 team, let’s look at this thing from a wider prospective.

After several straight losing seasons, Underwood made a decision a few years ago that was a risky one. He decided to go a different direction with his football program when he told offensive coordinator Tim Coats that his services were no longer needed. I don’t know how this all came down and don’t want to get caught up in semantics, I just know that the general consensus was that Coats was fired. This was a risky move, mainly due to the fact that Coats was the son of popular EC coach Teannie Coats, who had brought the program out of the wilderness in the mid 90s.

Coats was a smash-mouth, option sort of offensive guy. Underwood tried to go with the trends and go with a more wide-open attack that had been so successful at Pearl River and other juco schools. He hired a young coordinator, Mike Volarvich to run this new pass-happy offense.

After Hurricane Katrina, the first year was basically a do-over for the Warriors. The second year was much better. When it came right down to it, even though Underwood wanted to spread the ball out and throw, on third-and-one he still wanted to run the football to get a first down. So after two years, Volarvich was out and Underwood assumed the offensive coordinator duties this season.

And I have to say that the Warriors was better on offense than they have been in some time. Unfortunately, it was some ill-timed lapses in pass defense that cost the Warriors in some big games. Two plays in two games and the Warriors have a winning record this season.

Several other things really hurt Underwood in his time at EC. The first, which he had no control over, was the competition he played. In the last few years, he’s had to deal with nationally ranked teams like Pearl River, Gulf Coast, and Jones. Gulf Coast was co-national champions this year. Pearl River was dominate for a stretch there and Jones is always solid. Take this year for instance, East Central could have had its best team in years and still not had any better luck against those teams. That’s just the nature of the beast in junior college athletics.

Then there is recruiting. When you look at all of the junior college recruiting districts in the state, East Central’s may be the weakest, right next to Northeast’s. I know it’s the only one in the state that doesn’t have a 5A school in it. Even East Mississippi has Meridian, Columbus and Starkville to pull from, never mind 4A powers Northeast Lauderdale, Noxubee County and West Point. The state’s new recruiting rules, which allow teams to protect a certain number of players and allows other schools to recruit anybody else not on that list, has helped balance the playing field. But when it comes down to it, you have to have good players in your district to be successful and when you do bring in an out-of-state kid, he better be a sure-fire starter and Division I prospect.

And then there is the issue of Underwood being athletic director as well. If you go down through history, look at coaches that have tried this, from the college level to the NFL, rarely does it work out for the coach. Generally, it’s too much responsibility for one person to handle. I have often thought it was unfair for the head coach of any program to be athletic director and it would be in the school’s and the coach’s best interest to split the duties.

As far as a coach, I think Underwood did the best he could do with the circumstances he was faced with. Did he make some decisions that ended up hurting him? Sure he did but haven’t we all. Did he always make the right decisions on district players? Probably not, but judging talent is a fickle business. A kid may look like a star in high school but just doens’t have what it takes at the next level.

On a personal note to coach Underwood, I want to thank you for your cooperation with me in my time here at the newspaper. I enjoyed our talks about football and recruiting over the years. I always thought he was honest with me and he always returned my phone calls and that’s all I ever really ask of any coach.



Robbie Robertson is editor and publisher of The Newton Record.

        

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