VALDOSTA – More than a week has passed since Titletown High premiered on Netflix and the community, and the internet for that matter, is buzzing.

Last week, The Valdosta Daily Times caught up with director and executive producer Jason Sciavicco. This week, we caught up with the star of the show – former Valdosta head coach Rush Propst – to get his thoughts on how the series was received, his thoughts on the series, his coaching style, where his relationship with Michael “Nub” Nelson went sour and his future in coaching.

Q&A with Rush Propst

How would you describe the reactions that you’ve seen from Titletown High since it premiered?

RP: “You know, I think it’s been extremely positive from what I’ve seen. You’d have to ask Jason Sciavicco. He has a PR department that tracks all of that and the last thing he told me is that it’s been over 95% positive. I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but I talk to him two or three times a day. He’s tracking all of that and what I’ve seen on my social media and my wife stays up on Facebook and it’s been really positive. I’ve been very pleased with that part.”

Have you had a chance to watch the entire series?

RP: “Actually, I finished it (Tuesday) night. I tried to watch a couple episodes here and there. I didn’t binge or anything. As a matter of fact, I watched one episode – two or three days of it so I finished the last episode (Tuesday) night.”

What was your reaction to how the players were portrayed and how you were portrayed?

RP: “I thought it was good. I thought it was well done. Jason Sciavicco does good work. All you’ve got to do is ask Notre Dame, Florida State, Navy, Kentucky basketball and the people at Hoover High School and the Hoover community. To me, the people that are negative about it are the people that wish they had the same thing going on. They wish they had a show about their high school.

“Is there some high school drama in it? Yeah, there is, but that’s just part of life. That’s part of being a high school football player and what he goes through playing at a high-profile program and dealing with the personal side of your life. Hardcore football people would want all football. That’s not what the show is about. It’s got to balance the lives of high school football players and what they go through. I thought Jason did a phenomenal job with doing that.”

Diving into the series, there were things we finally got a chance to see the other side of, namely the Jake Garcia situation. You said at the time that you felt you did everything by the book and that was communicated in the documentary. How do you feel that situation was portrayed on-screen and the decision for him to move to Grayson?

RP: “I thought it was very accurate. I thought it portrayed him very well. I think it portrayed the situation very well. I think we did all we could do. I thought we did everything right. What’s telling to me that nobody really knows is that the University of Miami and the NCAA did a thorough investigation on Jake and found no wrongdoing. They found that he was not recruited. He didn’t take money like people said. To me, that’s powerful. I knew he hadn’t done anything wrong and I think the NCAA proves that with the University of Miami. That was a relief to me and I know it’s been a relief to Jake and his family.”

Both in Two-A-Days and this, it felt like those series did a good job of capturing the essence of your tough love coaching style. How well do you feel like it illustrated your coaching style and shed light on how you do things?

RP: “I think it showed a true portrayal of how I do coach. In today’s world of – whatever you want to call it, a feel-good society, if you will – I’m probably a dying breed when it comes to that, but there’s more successful coaches that coach like I coach than not. I’m old school. I’m hard-nosed. I think if you followed around Jimbo Fisher or Nick Saban or a Bill Belichick or any successful football coach, they’re going to be hard-nosed and I know a lot of high school coaches that are the same way.

“But, on the same token, you’ve got to also love your kids and you’ve got to do what’s best for your children. I think that’s why I’ve got such a great relationship with my former players. They’re constantly reaching out to me through social media or a call. I talked to a kid yesterday that I coached back in 1996. He reached out to me on Instagram and I probably hadn’t talked to him since 1997 or ’98. He called and said, ‘Coach, I just wanted to reach out and tell you how much I appreciate you.’ To me, that’s important. When you hear that side of it, that makes you feel good. Again, it accurately portrayed how tough I am on our players and how demanding I am, but life’s demanding. The world is demanding. With that being said, as a coach, you have to be that way. If you’re not, you’re cheating your kids a little bit.”

Given that you were the coach at Hoover in 2006 when they did Two-A-Days and you were the coach at Valdosta when they did Titletown High, how do the two shows compare and how do they differ?

RP: “I think the kids now and then are very similar. They’re more similar than not. I do believe that today’s society is different compared to ’05. Where the difference comes from is kids now are a lot more comfortable in front of cameras because of social media. They’re always doing Tik Tok videos or they’re on Instagram or Snapchat or Twitter or whatever. They’re way more comfortable now being on camera, whereas I thought it took our kids at Hoover a little longer to get used to it. These kids within a few days were used to it. A lot of that is because Jason and (his crew) are so good at what they do.

“The boyfriend-girlfriend stuff was the same, the football was the same. One of the differences is in ’05, we won the state title that year and that was the fourth consecutive state title in the largest classification and that had never been done. I believe the show had a lot to do with that because it motivated our players. I had run out of motivation for winning a state title. We had won three in a row and four of the last five. I had run out of things, so when Jason wanted to do a show for the ’05 season, I thought it was a great motivation for our players because they didn’t want to fail on camera.”

Was there anything in this documentary that you felt apprehensive about or a little bit worried about?

RP: “No. Not that I can put a finger on right now. Not that I know of.”

The series ends with the friction between you and “Nub” Nelson. In your opinion, where did that relationship go sour?

RP: “I never trusted him…I never trusted him. I didn’t like the direction of our Touchdown Club at the time. I think the coach has to run the club. The coach has to be in charge of his organization and there was a disconnect between us on that part of it. I think the coach is ultimately responsible for his Touchdown Club and I think, with that, I saw that he wanted to be in charge. He wanted things done his way and I didn’t think the way he was doing it was the right way.”

Since your dismissal at Valdosta and your former assistant Shelton Felton taking over after you, what is your opinion of Coach Felton as he moves forward as the coach there?

RP: “I think he’s a phenomenal man. He’s somebody that you would want to coach your son. He’s a very good football coach. He worked for me two years in Moultrie. He progressed to being a head coach after we won it in ’14 and then from there, he was successful and then he moved on to the college ranks and then he was at Tennessee. … Valdosta’s in good hands with Shelton Felton.”

Now that you’ve had time to be away from the situation at Valdosta, what are some of the plans you have for your future?

RP: “I’m just taking a year off and doing things that I’ve never done in my life. There’s things that you miss out in the fall of the year – from summer and fall – that you don’t get to do as a head football coach at a high-profile program. That’s where I’ve been for the last 30 years, 25 years for sure at a high-profile program. I’m looking forward this fall to sitting back and getting to watch football. When you’re a head football coach and you’re working all the time, you don’t get to see as much football as you think. You don’t get to watch no NFL games. You get to watch very little college games. You may catch some of the second half of a Saturday game or maybe a Saturday night game. You miss out on all that.

“My kids – being a good husband, being a good dad. You’ve been involved with other kids and raising other children and your kids and your wife become neglected during that time. Being a good dad, being a good husband, all of those things I look forward to this fall not coaching. To be honest with you, that excites me a little bit. I’ve sort of enjoyed the last month. I don’t mind telling you, the first few days of fall camp when it started, that bothered me because that’s something I’ve always done. You have early morning practices. The grind of football, not necessarily the games on Friday night, it’s the grind of football you miss. But now, my son’s playing football here at Piedmont High School in Northeast Alabama. My daughter’s going to school and my youngest son is going to school there too. I’ll be able to do things with them on Saturdays and Sundays away from football – like taking them hunting or fishing or going to a game and enjoy being a regular person for the first time in my life, really.”

In terms of Valdosta, that was a place you always wanted to work at and you said you wanted to retire at Valdosta. Given that you had the chance to lead the program and had a good first year, how do you reflect on that?

RP: “It was a very satisfying season. It was very tough and hard because of how late we got there, dealing with COVID, getting hired late and we had our first staff meeting June 1. Certain coaches, outside of just interviewing, you didn’t really know them. You saw the players for the first time in small groups on June 8th. We were quarantined for a week in July. We got into fall camp, but I thought our football team – going to the semifinals and losing to a better football team. Buford and Lee County were better football teams than us and right now, they have a better program to sustain their football teams. I was looking for to the ’21 season because we had a lot of people coming back and I feel like we had a good offseason and I thought we were headed in the right direction. I was satisfied with Year 1 probably more so at Valdosta probably more than any place I’d ever been Year 1. It was the most successful Year 1 I’ve ever had as a football coach.”

Titletown High ends with you and your wife, Stefnie, in the yard and the last thing you said is you hope it’s not the end. Do you feel like, if you were presented with an opportunity, that you’d be interested in coaching again or are you focusing on enjoying family life?

RP: “I’m enjoying the family life right now and this is going to be a fun fall and winter for me, but I’ll be ready to get back into coaching when an opportunity presents itself. I don’t feel like I’m done. I hope I’m not. If I am, if that’s what the good Lord has in store for me, then I’ll accept it and I’ll move on because I’ve had one heck of a career. Not many people can say they’ve coached in 12 championship games, winning seven of them.

“The success of the kids we had – over 250 kids have signed scholarships over a 31-year period. I talk with a ton of those kids all the time, even the ones that got their college degrees and are doing well in life. … If this is it and the Lord says it’s it, that’ll be it and I’ll deal with it, but if the opportunity presents itself to me and I feel like it’s a place that will put a lot of emphasis into football like they do in South Georgia, then I’ll look at it.”

Shane Thomas is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.