SPRING GARDEN – Following the final game each football season, the Spring Garden seniors take off their jerseys and put them in the middle of the locker room floor, symbolizing a rite of passage that they’re moving on.
On Friday morning at Spring Garden during a team meeting, Howard did the same.
“I told them ‘Guys, I’m taking my shirt off now and putting it in the floor. I still love you. You’re still part of my family. I’m just moving on to a different phase of life now,’” Howard said.
And with that, Howard’s coaching career at Spring Garden was over. He announced he had been hired at Coosa High School in Rome, Ga., as a new basketball and softball assistant.
Howard will be joining two former Cherokee County and Northeast Alabama coaching legends in boys basketball coach Tommy Lewis and girls basketball coach Jason Shields.
“That to me was the biggest part of the decision (to be with Lewis and Shields),” Howard said. “Had it not been with some people I thought I could trust, who I could get along with, I could work with, and we could have a good time together, then I wouldn’t have considered it.
“This will be my first experience at a bigger school. I’m excited and nervous. I’m interested to see what we can have. I think it’s going to be fun at this point in my career. If I didn’t think it was going to be fun, I wouldn’t leave a place where I’m having as much fun as I am here. I just think it was a good fit for me, and financially a situation I couldn’t turn down.”
In 20 seasons as a head coach, Howard compiled a 134-93 overall record, including a 16-12 mark in the playoffs. He spent two of those years at Ohatchee (2010-11), his alma mater.
In two terms at Spring Garden from 2003-09 and from 2012-2022, Howard went 129-78. Under Howard’s guidance, the Panthers posted six 10-win seasons, including five straight region championships. They went 10-2 last season.
The football field at Panther Stadium was named in his honor on Feb. 4, 2022.
“I haven’t had much time to reflect on all that yet. It’s been such a whirlwind,” Howard said. “From Tuesday at lunch until Thursday at lunch, I went from are you interested to application to interview to (board) quorum to the job is yours. My head’s been spinning. There are so many people I wish I could’ve talked to and been able to tell face to face before it got out, but it just happened so fast that I wasn’t able to talk to them and do that.”
But at least he was able to tell the Panther players and coaches in person before the news became widespread.
“I had to put out an all-call last night because we weren’t supposed to meet again until we came back from the Fourth (of July). I knew it would be out by then,” Howard said. “They understood. That shows the maturity level of this team, the fact they understood. When you’re dealing with kids you never can tell. Are they going to be angry about it? How are they going to feel about it? That worried me, but they were super supportive. They understand I love them. Even though I’m not their coach anymore, I’ll do anything in the world for them at any time. That’s what I explained to them. They understood it was just too good an opportunity for me not to do.”
Howard will be able to draw his retirement from Alabama in addition to his new duties at Coosa. He also plans to continue his side business of making sports trophies at Rock Run Awards.
“From a financial standpoint, I just could not seriously consider it,” Howard said. “I felt like Coosa was just a good fit from talking to the principal (Judson Cox), talking to Coach Shields, talking to Coach Lewis. All of it just lined up and sort of come together. It still made it a super tough decision, but one in this point of my life I felt like I had to make.
“I’ve got a little grandbaby now, and with their family being military, I want to be able to go wherever they’re at, and financially I just had to seriously look at that. That was really one of the most deciding factors in it, the financial part of it.”
When word broke of Howard’s decision, he said the text messages and phone calls began pouring in from former players and coaches, including a special one from former Sand Rock assistant Kenny Beck.
“I have so much respect for him,” Howard said. “The fact he took time to call me and say the things he did, that meant more to me than any championship we won, just to know that he respected what we did here and how we did it. That meant a lot to me.”
The messages and calls made from former players have been special to Howard as well. He appreciates they had faith in him to help turn things around at Spring Garden when he arrived from Cedar Bluff in 2003.
From 1969-2002, Spring Garden’s football teams had an overall record of 65-226-1. On average, those Panther teams won two games per year, and made the playoffs just two times in that span.
“Tyler Messer, Bill Frey, Daniel Whitmore, that group, since they were seventh and eighth graders on the varsity, we were getting our teeth kicked in every Friday night, but I told them if you will just stick with me, we’re going to turn this around. Just don’t lose faith in yourself and don’t lose faith in me. Before you graduate, we’ll turn it around,” Howard recalled.
“We go and get beat 69-0 at Cedar Bluff, and I wrote it on a sheet of paper and gave it to every one of them. They were in eighth and ninth grade then. Jake Scott, Trey Littlefield, I told them to put it somewhere and look at it. If you stick with me and keep doing what we’re doing, I promise you we’ll flip this before you graduate. Tyler’s senior year, we go down and beat them on their homecoming. That was the first time since 1987.”
After contacting him on three separate occasions, Howard went back home to Ohatchee in 2010 and stayed there two seasons before coming back to Spring Garden. Even though he didn’t have the success he was beginning to build at Spring Garden (the Indians went 5-15 in those two years), it was a move Howard said he didn’t regret.
“We were about to have to rebuild (after the 2009 season), and I thought if I’m ever going to (make a move), I had to do it then,” Howard said. “Everybody always asks me if I ever regret leaving and going down there. I don’t. I needed to that. I got the best son-in-law I could ask for out of it. My sister (Tyla McKenzie), who died of cancer, I got to get close to. I got to get closer to my mom. I got to get closer to my two nephews. I never had time when I was up here doing all this to see and be involved with. I would not trade those two years for anything. The fact I got to get closer to my sister before cancer took her away from us is something that I can’t put into words.”
Howard and the Spring Garden coaching staff picked up where they left off when he returned in 2012. In his second term as Panther head coach, Howard went 100-33, including a school-record back-to-back 12 win seasons in 2020 and 2021 – in Class 2A no less.
“Everything was still sort of in place when I left,” Howard said. “We got a good coach in Coach (Barrett) Ragsdale. Coach (Damon) McDonald and Coach (Tony) Benefield, those guys were here when I left and they were right here when I came back. Coach Benefield has been with me I guess about 17 years, and Coach McDonald has been with me since day one. I was already familiar with the kids. I had an idea what was going on. We come back and had Forrest (Livingston) and Will (Ivey) and those guys who were already in place. It was a good mix. That team was a special team. We flipped that thing with them.
“I think since I came back, there’s only been one year (2013) we haven’t made the playoffs. That was the year after Forrest and them graduated. From that point on, we’ve had a real good run of it. We couldn’t get out of the second round (of the playoffs), but Ryley Kirk and that group flipped that thing and got to the third round. Of course we had the semifinal run. Last year, we were three points away from being able to make a good run at it (31-28 loss to Coosa Christian). They ended up getting beat on a last-second play of being able to go to the championship game.”
Howard still plans to watch the Panthers play. He said it will be weird watching from the other side of the fence, but believes the Panthers will still be successful.
“I still think these guys are about to put together another good run,” Howard said. “They’ve got things in place where they may go on to win a state championship.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better career in the state of Alabama. I was at a great place at Cedar Bluff and Ohatchee. Spring Garden has been home. It’s always going to be home. Until you’ve experienced a Cedar Bluff and a Spring Garden, you don’t realize what it’s really about to be a part of those communities and how special it is.”