Valdosta football coach Rick Tomberlin points out that Bear Bryant went 1-9 in his first season at Texas A&M.
In 2006, Tomberlin went 1-9 in his first season at Valdosta, the most famous high school football program in Georgia if not the country.
Tomberlin has gone 9-3 and 5-5 since, giving him a three-year record that isn’t Valdosta-like, but it doesn't reflect the optimism that Tomberlin has about what’s around the bend.
‘’It’s not unusual for coaches to struggle early,’’ Tomberlin said. “The thing that haunts us is that beast of Valdosta tradition – 23 state titles, six national championships. Why aren’t y’all doing better?”
Behind the scenes, perhaps Valdosta is doing better. Yes, the team with more victories than any school in the nation hasn’t won a state title in 11 years – the longest drought since the state starting doing state championships in the 1930s. But in other ways, the program is thriving.
File photo by Tracey Long
Dominant freshmen and junior varsity programs could help pave the way for a return to tradition at Valdosta.
Tomberlin just wrapped up spring practice with 175 players, a robust number for a school of 1,900 students, making Valdosta one of the 10 smallest schools in Georgia’s highest classification, AAAAA. Tomberlin also proudly reports that 80 percent of them had no more than one C the last semester.
Tomberlin’s freshman team has gone undefeated two seasons in a row. His junior varsity team was unbeaten in 2007. The season before Tomberlin came, the freshman team was winless.
Valdosta just won the state’s weightlifting championship this year, a result of Tomberlin’s strength and conditioning program that has given him national recognition from his days at Washington County, where he won three state football titles in 1990s at a school that had not been known for football until Tomberlin came there.
While Tomberlin praises his rising seniors for character and leadership, the talent and perhaps Tomberlin's future rides on a special class of juniors and sophomores.
‘’We’ve got Valdosta-type players coming, the Valdosta of old,’’ Tomberlin said. ‘’We’ve got to win more games. I understand that. 5-5 is not good enough by my standard or Valdosta’s standard. But I’m very excited about our program.’’
And Valdosta fans are being patient, which is a surprise.
The coach of Valdosta’s last state championship team, in 1998, was fired despite a 70-20-1 record. His replacement, Rick Darlington, reached the state final in his first season, 2003, but resigned after his third.
Then came Tomberlin, one of the state’s most prominent coaches. Washington County, a Class AA school in middle Georgia, had produced several ACC and SEC players, including NFL star Takeo Spikes. But in Tomberlin’s first season at Valdosta, the unthinkable happened – a 1-9 season. Playing in Region 1-AAAAA, the state’s toughest, Valdosta lost seven times by seven or fewer points.
In 2007, Valdosta went 9-3, but dropped back to .500 last fall. But Tomberlin says things are about to change. And for now, Valdosta believes him.
“I never thought Valdosta would be so nice,’’ Tomberlin said. ‘’In some respects, Valdosta gets a bad rap in terms of not treating coaches good. Maybe some things happened in the past. I can’t say good or bad, but they’ve treated me nothing but wonderfully. If you’d have told me if I’d been at Washington County, contemplating whether to come here, that here’s your record, you’re going to lose to [crosstown rival] Lowndes [three straight times], I would’ve thought they’d ship me out on a rail. They haven’t done that at all.’’