Tonight, Rick Tomberlin’s fate could be decided.

The Valdosta Board of Education will be meeting tonight. One of the issues on the agenda is an executive session to discuss “personnel issues.” I don’t know for sure, but it seems possible that those personnel issues could include deciding whether or not Tomberlin will keep his job as Valdosta High’s head football coach.

I don’t know which way the members of the Board plan to vote, but there are certainly good reasons why Tomberlin deserves to remain Valdosta’s coach next year.

For one thing, his team went 7-3 in the regular season, with a team of primarily underclassmen. It wasn’t a championship season, but it wasn’t bad, either. If Valdosta’s quarterback had been healthy in the Colquitt County game, and if the kicker had been healthy in the Northside game, it’s possible that the Wildcats would have gone 9-1 and tied Lowndes for first in the region.

If the Wildcats had gone 9-1, Tomberlin’s job would be secure.

If given another year, Tomberlin would have a golden opportunity to prove himself. Valdosta will probably have its most talented team since the 2003 state runners-up. Most of its starters will be back. Take those underclassmen, give them another year to develop, and the Wildcats could be very impressive.

Tomberlin is not a bad football coach. You don’t win 222 games in 27 seasons by accident. You don’t make five appearances in the state finals — and win three state championships — without knowing how to coach. Tomberlin has a whole wall of plaques in his office — including multiple Coach of the Year awards — that indicate he’s a pretty good coach.

Tomberlin was also a finalist for the NFL’s High School Coach of the Year — competing against coaches from all over the country — in 2003.

Also, look at what he’s done off the field. Tomberlin’s record in the classroom is very impressive. Valdosta football players have made their grades. Several are honor students. I don’t believe there was a single Wildcat football player that was academically ineligible this season, and that is an impressive feat. The coaching staff has monitored players’ grades, and tried to help them pass their classes. And the players have been taking the classes they need to qualify for college.

And he’s gotten his players into college. The last two years, close to 20 Valdosta players have signed letters of intent, and more will sign in February 2010.

Tomberlin is also a man of integrity and character, who tries to instill the proper values in his players. Most of his players are good kids who stay out of trouble. When a player does get in trouble, he disciplines them, but his discipline is fair. He wants to see his players become fine adults, and he does his part to encourage positive growth in them.

Tomberlin’s 22-21 record at Valdosta is not very good by VHS standards. But if you eliminate his 1-9 first season (when the Wildcats played a brutal schedule; all 10 teams they faced that year had winning records, eight made the playoffs and five were ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 in the state at one point in the season), he is a more-respectable 21-12. Eliminate his 0-5 record the past three years against Lowndes and Northside — two of the elite programs in AAAAA right now — and that record becomes 21-7, which is pretty good.

Sure, losing to Lowndes four years in a row is bad. But the Vikings have been arguably the top program in the state over the past six years, and nobody else is beating them, either (since 2004, no team has beaten Lowndes more than once).

In games where he’s clearly had the superior team, Tomberlin has won. In the last four years, Valdosta is undefeated against teams that ended the season with a losing record. In games where Valdosta has had the inferior team, they’ve usually lost. And in the games where the talent level is similar, the Wildcats have won some and lost some.

My biggest fear about voting out Tomberlin is that I don’t know if Valdosta will find a championship-winning coach to replace him. To go out and look for a new head coach would be a big roll of the dice. Valdosta fans would love to have another Wright Bazemore or Nick Hyder — what team wouldn’t? — but the reality is that there was only one Bazemore and one Hyder. Elite coaches like that are almost impossible to find, no matter how hard you look.

Plus, a lot of good coaches will be hesitant to come to Valdosta. Mike O’Brien was voted out four years after his 1998 state championship. Rick Darlington resigned less than two years after being named the AAAAA State Coach of the Year. Tomberlin’s status is up in the air after just four years. O’Brien’s Woodstock team and Darlington’s Apopka (Fla.) team each went 9-1 in the 2009 regular season, so they’re both doing well at their current schools. Given that recent history, I’m sure a lot of coaches are hesitant to leave a school where they’ve been successful to take the perceived risk of coaching Valdosta.

Valdosta’s primary problem recently has been the tough competition it has played. Lowndes is arguably the premier program in the state right now. Northside is not far behind. Warner Robins, Colquitt County, Tift County and Coffee have also had some good teams recently. For years, Valdosta won by outcoaching and outplaying teams. Nowadays, it’s extremely difficult to outcoach Lowndes’ Randy McPherson, Northside’s Conrad Nix or Colquitt’s Rush Propst — three men with a combined 12 state championships as head coaches — and if you outplay their teams, it’s only because your players are better. Tomberlin’s teams haven’t won all of their games, but they’ve been competitive in nearly every one.

Valdosta wants to get back to being the premier high school football program in Georgia, but that’s not going to happen if the school keeps changing coaches every 3-4 years. Bazemore and Hyder coached the Wildcats for a combined 50 years, and that continuity was a big plus for the program.

If the Board of Education, or anyone else involved in deciding Tomberlin’s future, has concerns about the football program, wouldn’t it be easier to confront those issues in a meeting with Tomberlin, instead of voting him out and going through the time, effort and expense of searching for another coach? A meeting with Tomberlin might enable him to alleviate any concerns they had, and it would at least give him a chance to respond to those concerns.

What’s the worst-case scenario if they let Tomberlin stay? He has a bad year, and 12 months from now, he leaves. At that point, Valdosta is no worse off than it is now.

Giving Tomberlin another year wouldn’t be a bad idea. And if the Wildcats have a successful 2010 season, it could turn out to be a real good one.



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