When Bradwell Tigers convene for spring football practice in coming weeks, they’ll have a new coach at the helm whose former team is a reigning region champion with recent state titles.
Five members of the Liberty County Board of Education unanimously voted Thursday for Adam Carter, who currently is the defensive coordinator for Camden County High School, to serve as BI’s head coach.
Board Chairwoman Lily Baker and members Verdell Jones, Carol Guyett, Becky Carter and Harold Woods voted in favor. Carolyn Smith Carter and Marcia Anderson were not present for the called meeting.
The recommendation came from Principal Scott Carrier, who placed Carter as a health and physical-education teacher by day.
“We are very excited that coach Carter will be able to assist the students of Bradwell Institute in becoming both strong athletically and in the classroom,” Carrier said. “We have full confidence in all that he’ll accomplish when he arrives.”
In a phone interview, Carter said becoming a head coach has been a longtime goal and he is eager to get to Hinesville.
“I’m leaving Camden County, which is, as you know, one of the powerhouse schools of Georgia high school football … it just felt right, to be honest with you,” he said. “I just thought I could go into Bradwell Institute and make a difference.”
Carter said he took the job without even knowing what kind of money is involved, saying it was purely a “stomach-gut decision.”
“We’re going to instill a work ethic that is second-to-none,” he said, adding that he wants the Tigers to be a proud team with a supportive community. “I’m coming in with a plan, and we’re going to stick to the plan that’s proven. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make BI successful to win on the field and get these kids winning off the field, in school, and get them to college and make them proud of what they’ve got there.”
Carrier said immediately after the board’s vote that they had not worked out a starting date for Carter but he hopes to have him begin within a week.
There were more than 30 applications, and Carter was one of five finalists selected for interviews, according to Assistant Superintendent Jason Rogers. One of the finalists withdrew his or her application, so only four were interviewed last week.
The new coach is expected to bring a fresh perspective to a Region 3-AAAAA program that’s gone stale.
As the Courier previously reported, community pressure was on the school and district to replace former coach Jim Walsh since before the 2011 season. When the board voted in February not to renew Walsh’s contract as head coach, discussions flared in the community over whether to promote from within the program or to hire from outside.
More than 100 Bradwell students circulated a petition asking that Tiger defensive coordinator Jeff Miller be offered the post, while bloggers and Courier Sound off callers alike have called for administrators to “clean house.”
According to his resume, Carter began coaching in 2007 as a graduate assistant at the University of West Georgia.
He was the varsity coach at North Paulding High School in Dallas, Ga. He then moved to assistant football secondary coach at South Carolina State University. From there, he moved to Camden County High School, where he was an assistant coach before being promoted to defensive coordinator and secondary coach. He began in spring 2011 and coached through the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
Carter also currently serves as the track-and-field coach for Camden.
The Region 1-AAAAAA Camden Wildcats have a history of excellence. As an AAAAA-team, they were state champions in 2003, 2008 and 2009, according to the Georgia High School Football Historians Association online.
From 2010 through 2012, the Wildcats made it to the final four, and they’ve been consecutive region champs since 2001.
Carter’s departure marks another shift in coaching for the Wildcats, who on March 28 announced that Welton Coffey was tapped to replace former coach Jeff Herron, who was there from 2000-2012. The Camden County Tribune reports that Herron announced his departure in February.