MOULTRIE — Many taxpayers are stunned to learn what some high school coaches are paid to win high school football games.
The head coach of Colquitt County’s football team, for example, is one of at least 17 coaches earning a six-figure salary in Georgia, according to The Moultrie Observer’s analysis of state data and requests for public information submitted to dozens of local school districts. That’s much more than all educators and most administrators.
Rush Propst, whose salary could top nearly $134,000 if Colquitt County wins state again, said the money comes with demands on par with those heaped onto college coaches with much higher salaries, the Moultrie newspaper reported last week.
Propst, the former head coach of perennial football power Hoover High School in Alabama, said he expects coaches’ pay to continue to rise.
“The arms race will not stop,” he said. “The best coaches are going to go after the best jobs with the highest money.”
At least two schools that play in Colquitt County’s region – Valdosta and Lowndes – pay their coaches six-figure salaries, records show.
Valdosta’s Rance Gillespie will make about $111,000 this year. Lowndes High School’s Randy McPherson will be paid nearly $104,000, according to the districts.
Big pay isn’t just for big-school coaches.
The highest-paid coach in Georgia, Jess Simpson, coaches at Buford High School, northeast of Atlanta, according to the analysis of state and local education data. The Wolves compete in AAAA, Georgia’s third-highest classification. Simpson will earn $174,000 this year.
High salaries don’t guarantee success, the Moultrie newspaper reported.
In Thomasville, where the district pays its coach $120,000, the AA school that plays in one of the state’s smallest classifications just wrapped up its first one-win season in history. Superintendent Boykins-Everett wouldn’t comment on Coach Leroy Ryals’ future. The coach, who has been at the school for three seasons, has another year on his contract. He didn’t responded to a request for comment.
Ryals’ salary is “not so extraordinarily out of line with some of those closer to us,” Boykins-Everett told the newspaper.
Several Georgia coaches who earn a six-figure salary do so partly because they also work as their schools’ athletic directors. Calhoun High’s Hal Lamb and Elbert County High’s Sid Fritts – both AAA schools – play those dual roles, as does Thomasville’s Ryals. Lamb, whose team won a state championship last year, is paid nearly $106,000. Fritts gets $100,000.
A coach is one of the most important hires a district can make, Elbert County Superintendent Chuck Bell said.
“There’s no escaping the fact that in a small community like our own, he is looked upon as an important leader of young people,” Bell said.
Associated Press
