Charlie Winslette, GACA Hall of Fame coach
Today’s interviewee is GACA Hall of Fame coach Charlie Winslette, who is in his 50th season as a Georgia high school football coach. Now at an assistant coach/consultant at Putnam County, Winslette won 260 games as a head coach. He is one of 15 coaches to win GHSA championships at two schools (West Rome, Greene-Taliaferro) and one of 11 to win region titles at four (Statesboro, West Rome, Greene-Taliaferro, Stephens County). He also won a state title as a Putnam County player in 1967.
1. What's kept you in the game for 50 years when you could be fishing every day in the lake country around you? “Terrible at fishing. Decent golfer, but playing two-three times a week at Reynolds National, Cuscowilla or Reynolds Creek Club is pricey. My wife says I can’t fix anything around the house, so she don’t want me at home all day sitting in the Lay-Z-Boy, so off to work I go. I still enjoy the X’s and O’s, and Friday nights are still special. I’m upstairs now on Fridays and never realized how much more you can see upstairs than on the sideline. I was [living] on Lake Oconee for 17 years and really enjoyed it. My 28-year defensive coordinator, Marvin Barton, at Athens Academy now, still own a deck boat together. Took us 13 years to pay it off. Just celebrated my wife, Christine, and my 50th anniversary. We got married the same year I started coaching at Cedar Shoals High School on Sept. 8, 1974, and teaching driver’s education. Teaching salary plus football supplement totaled $7,500. Wife hadn’t found a job yet, so at 4 a.m. before school I was delivering the Athens Banner-Herald to 210 lucky neighbors in the Cedar Shoals community. Coach Erk Russell was one of my deliveries.”
2. Who was the best player you ever faced, and some good ones you coached? “When at Cedar Shoals we played Thomson and Eddie Lee Ivery. He was unbelievable. We had a good team with future UGA quarterback Jeff Pyburn and several future SEC players, and it was all we could do to pull out the win. He almost beat us single-handedly. Garrison Hearst [at Lincoln County] would be in the same category. He could have made it in the NFL as a punter. Brent Cunningham, who I played with at Putnam, was a difference maker as was my late UGA baseball teammate Andy Johnson, who passed away with throat cancer. They say that he played so well [for Athens] against Valdosta in the state championship game that [Valdosta coach Wright] Bazemore went in to see him in the visitors dressing room in Valdosta after the game to shake his hand and tell him he was a great player. I sold Ray Goff on Robert Edwards when Robert played at Washington County. He was an outside linebacker in their eight-man front, but in the second half they would play him at tailback. Just glad Coach [Rick] Tomberlin didn't play him there every snap. Ray wasn't even recruiting him but trusted what I told him and signed him, and he was a beast. Sold Mike Bobo on Monroe Area player Michael Gallup, who plays with the Cowboys on Sunday. He was at a JC in Kansas, and when I called him on his cell he was down and said he was coming home the next day to Monroe and join the army. I talked him into staying until I got him a trip arranged to Colorado State, where Coach Bobo signed him, and he became a consensus All-American and recently re-upped with the Cowboys for 62.5 million. When we retired his Monroe Area No. 3 jersey last year, he said if I hadn't made that cell call, he might be a captain in the US Army now. William Kent and Spencer Hammond at West Rome both signed with Alabama after 59-1 high school careers. Joe McCluskey signed with Jax State and was a special player as well.”
3. What ways has the high school game changed the most since you started coaching? “So much more emphasis on the passing game, especially the RPOs off the inside zone play and the quarterback being able to get the ball out so quickly, which almost negates the rush. My friend Ray Lamb said in his day RPO stood for ‘run people over,’ not run-pass-option. All the attention given to throwing seven-on-seven all summer and players going to camps to learn the right footwork to run the pass routes has changed the game drastically. Much more technical than telling the wideout to go down about five yards and run an out route as we did in the ‘70s. Now the route is not measured on yards but on a certain number of steps before breaking in or out. Everything is timed up, much more sophistication to quarterbacks and receivers recognizing and understanding the different coverages and how to beat them.”
4. What is the real difference-maker in winning and losing in high school football? What was the most important thing you wanted to establish, or make sure was in place, when you took a new job? “Your off-season program and gaining great hip and leg strength and upper body strength and the components of agility and speed are the most important keys to winning, along of course with the talented skill people in the quarterback room, the receiver room and the running backs room who make the explosive plays. The weight room is the place where you build the work ethic that in the end will win the day. It all still runs through the quarterback, what is his skill set. When you take a new job, there must be an understanding of the importance of the weight room by all and the need to hire great assistant coaches and a plan to keep them around. You must have an understanding that the program and its success is important to the people who sign your check because you will need their help to grow and sustain the program.”