Rush Propst headed back to Georgia; officially hired by Valdosta HS

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I remember Joe McKnight beating his arse on national television

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I thought he was taking over the new school near Montgomery. The one that was supposed to be another IMG... if it’s even still happening.

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Q: Why did you leave USA Academy?

Propst: “There were enormous philosophical differences about how to build a football program. That’s the main reason. There were others, but philosophical differences was No. 1, and No. 2, I did not feel comfortable about not having a physical plant secured.

“We’re less than six months away from an Aug. 22 first game with a schedule (DeVaughn) put together. I didn’t put the schedule together. He put the schedule together. That was a problem, too. I don’t know a football coach in America – do you know of one? – who doesn’t control his schedule. In high school football, usually the head football coach does. I’ve never known of anyone who didn’t have control of their own schedule.

“With that, you throw in (playing) IMG (Fla.) and St. Frances (Md.) and Good Counsel (Md.) and some of these schools, and you don’t even have a building to go to work in? That’s tough sledding.


“The other thing, I’ve been over there a couple of times. I didn’t have an office. I didn’t have a place to sit down and work. This thing went down Jan. 2 and here it was approaching March 2, last week, I didn’t see anything changing in two months.

“Here’s the other thing, the month of January and the months of February, March and April are critical months in the development of a football program. Well, not a single kid was in, so that’s alarming to me. The other thing that was alarming to me was all these re-class kids.

“I’m not saying it’s right, wrong or indifferent, but I wasn’t sure about dealing with re-class kids. They’re older kids. They’ve already completed their eligibility in high school and they re-class, and if they did not play on the varsity in a varsity game as a freshman, they could re-class and play in this private league. But nobody does that. The teams we’re playing don’t have re-class kids.

“I was OK with a few to get started, but I didn’t want to base our whole program on re-class kids. All of a sudden, these kids come in and six months later they’re gone, and I didn’t see that as the right thing. Some of the teams we were playing were concerned with that – really concerned with that – and I would be, too. You’re putting your kids who are 10th-graders or 11th-graders and you’re putting them up against kids who have already finished playing high school football.”

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