By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Cartwright named head coach at BCHS
Former Windsor Forext, Claxton football coach happy to be here
Allen Cartwright
Allen Cartwright

Veteran coach Allen Cartwright has been named the new head football coach at Bryan County High School, it was announced Thursday.

Cartwright will replace the popular Mark Wilson, who is taking the head coaching job at Taylor County in order to be closer to family. Wilson led the Redskins to back-to-back playoff appearances in 2013 and 2014.

Cartwright said he’s eager to build on Bryan County’s recent gridiron success.

“I am happy and very excited to be the Bryan County Football Coach. I look forward to building on the success that the program has experienced in recent years,”  There is no other place I would rather be coaching next fall.”

 

Cartwright’s appointment was approved by the school board during a called meeting Thursday at Richmond Hill Primary School. He has 21 years of experience as a health and PE teacher and as a coach.

Cartwright, who has a career record of 127-137 in 10 seasons, was last a head coach in 2011, and most recently was offensive coordinator and strength coach at Metter, where last the Tigers made the playoffs for the first time since 2010.

He’s held two head coaching jobs – at Claxton from 2006 to 2011, and, prior to that, at Windsor Forest, where he was coach from 2001-2004, according to the Georgia High School Football Historians Association.

Cartwright’s 2004 team went 7-4 and made the state Class AAAAA playoffs. It was apparently the first time the Knights had advanced to the state playoffs since 1976.

Like Wilson, Cartwright is considered a rebuilder of programs.

Crystal Morales, who will take over the principal’s duties next fall at BCHS, is excited about the hiring, according to a press release issued by the BoE.

“Coach Cartwright is respected by his peers and has a history of success,” Morales said. “Our players, parents and assistant coaches look forward to working with him.”

 

Sign up for our E-Newsletters
Later yall, its been fun
Placeholder Image

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

Latest Obituaries