By Christian Malone

The Valdosta Daily Times

VALDOSTA — After 41 years, Mike O’Brien has coached his final game.

O’Brien, who spent 22 years on Valdosta High’s coaching staff, including seven seasons as the Wildcats’ head coach, announced his retirement on Wednesday after 41 years as a high school football coach.

In 14 seasons as the head coach at Valdosta and Woodstock, O’Brien had a career record of 112-54-1.

“(The Woodstock players) were a little upset, and it was hard telling them I was leaving,’’ O’Brien told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “My wife retired from teaching school a couple of years ago, and I’ve been thinking about it, and just think it’s the right time to do it. I may change my mind later, but I think it’s the right time now.’’

O’Brien was the head coach at Valdosta High School from 1996-2002. During his seven seasons as the head coach, the Wildcats won a state championship in 1998, were state runners-up in 1996 and made the semifinals three times (1996, 1998, 2001).

O’Brien went 70-20-1 in his seven seasons as Valdosta’s head coach, an average of 10 wins a season. The Wildcats won the region championship in 1998 and 2000, and shared the region title in 2001 and 2002.

Before becoming Valdosta’s head coach in 1996, O’Brien had spent 15 seasons as an assistant coach for the Wildcats, under the late Nick Hyder. Valdosta won six state championships and three national championships while O’Brien was an assistant there.

He was fired after the 2002 season, following an 8-3-1 season and a second-round loss to Camden County (15-14, in the last Georgia high school football game decided by penetration).

After leaving Valdosta, O’Brien became the head coach at Woodstock. He inherited a program that had lost 24 games in a row, and turned it around. In his first season at Woodstock, a team coming off of back-to-back 0-10 seasons, the Wolverines went 5-5. Two years later, they were 8-3.

O’Brien’s last two years at Woodstock may have been the two most successful seasons in the program’s history. In 2008, the Wolverines were 6-4 in the regular season, then went on a Cinderella run in the playoffs, upsetting Walton and Norcross on the road in the first two rounds, before losing to eventual state champion Camden by one point in the quarterfinals, 18-17. It was the first time Woodstock had ever made it to the quarterfinals.

In 2009, Woodstock had its first 10-win season, going 10-2 and making it to the second round of the playoffs.

Before coming to Valdosta in 1981, O’Brien had coached in Mississippi for six seasons, then at Colquitt County for four years.

O’Brien’s teams had a lot of success on the field. But he said that the championships and the wins weren’t the highlights of his career. The highlights were the experiences he had working with countless kids, both on and off the field.

“All those are accomplishments, but they go by (the) wayside the next year,’’ O’Brien said. “It’s the kids you’ve helped, hopefully, and the lives you’ve affected or changed. Hopefully they live on forever.’’