The Sports Blog reported last week that Avery's fellow Western Highlands Conference member Madison High School's head football coach and athletic director Darren Ponder had resigned from the school. Last week, the Patriots found a replacement when they hired Eric Schneider, who coached the Madison High junior varsity football team to a 7-3 record last year, as its new head coach.
The announcement appeared last week in an edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times as follows:
The Madison County Board of Education approved the hiring on Friday night after a lengthy school board meeting.
Several football players stood outside the board office awaiting word on who would be hired, and the players presented board members with a letter asking them to hire Schneider.
“Coach Schneider has been the most consistent and loyal coach that the Madison County football program has had for a number of years,” the players wrote. “Coach Schneider has mentored many of us as players, students, and young men since seventh grade. This consistency and personal interest has created a mutual trust that is necessary to any successful team sport."
The move came less than a week after the resignation of athletic director and football coach Darren Ponder, who had been at Madison High School for one year. The varsity team went 0-11 in 2007, playing several games at the end of the season with several junior varsity players after about a dozen varsity players were suspended for improper activity.
The announcement appeared last week in an edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times as follows:
The Madison County Board of Education approved the hiring on Friday night after a lengthy school board meeting.
Several football players stood outside the board office awaiting word on who would be hired, and the players presented board members with a letter asking them to hire Schneider.
“Coach Schneider has been the most consistent and loyal coach that the Madison County football program has had for a number of years,” the players wrote. “Coach Schneider has mentored many of us as players, students, and young men since seventh grade. This consistency and personal interest has created a mutual trust that is necessary to any successful team sport."
The move came less than a week after the resignation of athletic director and football coach Darren Ponder, who had been at Madison High School for one year. The varsity team went 0-11 in 2007, playing several games at the end of the season with several junior varsity players after about a dozen varsity players were suspended for improper activity.
Schneider, who said he played high school ball in Chicago and college ball in Washington State and in Chicago, has never held a varsity coaching position.After the vote to hire Schneider was announced, players and parents hooted and grabbed their cell phones to spread the news.
James Taffer, a football parent who attended the meeting, said Schneider “has worked with them for so long. The values he’s instilled in them in the seventh and eighth grades are showing right now,” he said.
Also interviewed for the coaching position were Madison native Mark Gosnell, who has coached at Erwin High School and in Georgia, and former Northwest Cabarrus High head coach Mike Helms, who led the Trojans to the playoffs in six straight seasons.
