Shaw High School football program searching for new head coach. Here’s why
Shaw High School is searching for a new head football coach.
Blair Harrison, who was promoted in June from offensive coordinator to interim head coach after the death of Al Pellegrino, has been hired as Shaw’s full-time athletics director, the Muscogee County School District announced Tuesday.
That means Shaw’s head football coaching position now is vacant.
“Coach Harrison has done an outstanding job under such tumultuous circumstances and we are very grateful and proud of what he has accomplished this year, taking our Raider football team to the playoffs for the first time since 2015,” Shaw principal Sureya Hendricks said in the news release. “After several productive conversations, Coach Harrison and I have agreed that his experience as an Athletic Director is greatly needed to enhance the athletic programs at Shaw.”
The news release doesn’t include any comments from Harrison, but he told the Ledger-Enquirer the decision to be full-time AD and not coach was his idea.
“To do each job right, I needed to pick one,” he said. “At this point in my career, this is the best fit for Shaw High School.”
Harrison, 50, has been coaching for 28 years. Being in charge of a football team and an athletics program at a Class AAAA school, he said, proved to be too much of a strain on his family life.
“When I took on that responsibility at a school this size,” he said, “the family factor weighs on you.”
The Raiders went 16-34 under Pellegrino from 2017-21. Although their record was 4-7 in 2022 under Harrison, they qualified for the state playoffs for the first time in seven years.
Harrison has an overall record of 128-84 in 19 seasons as a head football coach, winning three region championships. The Brookstone Cougars went 104-55 under Harrison in 14 seasons over two stints, 2003-11 and 2017-21. He led the program to the Class A private school state playoffs in five straight years, advancing as far as the second round three times, including 7-4 in 2021.
Asked why he chose to be athletics director instead of coach next year at Shaw, Harrison said, “I didn’t want to work for another AD. I had a bad experience with that. I just felt that the best position for me is where I could help a football coach know what he needs to be successful.”
Harrison is part of a search committee of “four or five” MCSD employees tasked with hiring the new coach, he said, and he expects to receive plenty of applications before the Jan. 12 deadline.
“We have a lot (of players) coming back, so it’s a good place to leave a guy coming in,” he said. “I would expect next year should be even better.”
The L-E asked MCSD athletics director Jeff Battles whether the district’s other head football coaches will remain in their positions for the 2023 season.
“At this point,” he said in an email, “Shaw is the only change.”
This story was originally published November 29, 2022 at 10:08 AM.
