Coaches with state titles and 0-10 seasons

Last week’s Gainesville-Buford game featured two of the state’s most successful coaches in Gainesville’s Bruce Miller and Buford’s Jess Simpson. What they also had in common is that each knows what it’s like to suffer through an 0-10 season – Miller at Cass in 1991 and Simpson at East Paulding in 1997. Besides Miller, two other of Hall County’s best-ever coaches – Lee Shaw of Flowery Branch (now at Rabun County) and Bob Christmas of North Hall – also have finished 0-10, but somebody gave them another chance, and the rest is history. Here are 13 coaches who won state championships in Georgia but also finished 0-10 at some point in their careers:

Lee Campbell

State title: Hawkinsville 2003-04

0-10: Montgomery County 1996-97

C.B. Cornett

State title: Macon County 1996

0-10: Pepperell 1982

Harold Henderson

State title: Glynn Academy 1964

0-10: Wills 1970, Shamrock 1979

Jimmy Hightower

State titles: Americus 1962, 1965

0-10: LaGrange 1974

Jacky Jones

State title: Lyons 1975

0-10: Toombs County 1987

Eric Parker

State title: Burke County 2011

0-10: Laney 1997

Dan Pitts

State title: Mary Persons 1980

0-10: Mary Persons 1961

Fred Shaver

State titles: SE Bulloch 1972-73

0-10: SE Bulloch 1966

Weyman Sellers

State titles: Athens 1955, 1969

0-10: Jonesboro 1973

Jess Simpson

State titles: Buford 2007-10

0-10: East Paulding 1997

Odis Spencer

State titles: Spencer 1950, 1952, 1956, 1967

0-10: Spencer 1971

Garfield Stephens

State title: Douglass-Montezuma 1981

0-10: Washington 1987

Bud Theodocian

State title: Morrow 1987

0-10: Bass 1966

Source: GHSFHA.com

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