When news broke in early November about James Harvey resigning from his post as head coach at Columbia High School, I honestly didn’t even begin to think about who would take his place.
Instead, I thought about all the things parents and fans don’t see that go on behind the scenes that I know for a fact coach Harvey excelled at. He truly cared about his players beyond the football field, which is a must.
After a few days though, I began thinking about what Columbia needed in a coach to help spark the program into one where winning is expected. There were three qualities that came to mind — he needed to be young, energetic and innovative.
I learned Sunday afternoon that Columbia would likely make Perry Central’s Chip Bilderback their next head coach, and he was announced at a press conference on Monday.
When I first heard his name Sunday, I immediately grabbed my laptop and did some digging. I’ll tell you what, his resume is impressive. After learning under his father-in-law Perry Wheat — who has 280 career wins — for nearly a decade during two stints at Purvis, Bilderback coached two years at the junior college level at Jones County before taking on his first head coaching gig at Perry Central in 2016.
What Bilderback accomplished in his time at Perry Central is nothing short of remarkable. He became the head coach just two months before the season started, won six games, then after having his first full offseason as the head man, he guided the Bulldogs to a 10-2 season. His only two losses were a 17-14 overtime thriller to Collins and a 24-19 heartbreaker to Taylorsville, who beat Collins in the South State championship before topping Winona to capture the state title. Simply put, he made Perry Central one of very best teams in the state in just 17 months on the job.
Resume aside, does he possess those three things I mentioned earlier? Young? He’s 38, check. Energetic? He sure seemed to have a certain charisma about him on Monday and reinvigorated the Perry Central program in a very short time, check. Innovative? Of all the things I heard him say during his press conference and our 1-on-1 interview, this stood out to me the most.
“Our personnel is going to dictate what we do offensively and predicated on who we have at our positions,” he said. “Our first year at Perry Central, we ran the Wing T. Our second year, we ran the (I-form) and the spread. It’s really going to be based on the personnel dictating what we do.”
I’ve always been in the belief that you build your system around your personnel rather force your personnel into your system, so check and mate! Now I’m not saying Bilderback is going to be the next Les Peters, but in the 48 hours since I heard his name as a possibility until now, he’s made me a believer and sold me on this being a great hire for Wildcat football.
