Former UGA baseball coach re-invents himself at his old high school

But, no, really, it makes perfect sense. Once you put it into the context of place.

Perno is as Athens as breakfast at the Mayflower.

He was a fullback on Billy Henderson’s 1985 state championship team at Clarke Central, and a star on Henderson’s baseball team.

He stayed home, playing baseball and getting taught up at Georgia, a senior on the Bulldogs’ 1990 World Series championship team.

He literally married the girl next door — adjacent to Perno’s Formal Wear on Athens’ Baxter Street is the sporting goods store owned by Melaney Chastain’s father.

And when he was promoted to head coach of the baseball team in 2002, and a largely undecorated program began regularly sniffing the postseason, it seemed as if Perno’s rank in his hometown was set and secure. Not quite.

As he sat in the stands at his old high school during a 2015 football game — the sideline light on players and the stands low on enthusiasm — Perno started to mull.

“All I could think about was Coach Henderson. Gosh, this is awful,” he said.

“Then the job came open. Jokingly, I said it to someone, maybe I need to do that. Just get back in it. I think I can really help those kids and get that Clarke Central pride back. We were one of the best programs in the country when (Henderson) was here and we were one of the best schools in the state because there was so much pride.

“I couldn’t believe what I saw at that game. I thought I could make a difference.”

And there was one other crucial factor in Perno’s mid-life quest to bring glory back to his old high school, to take a lesser-profile job just one mile from where he once coached in the lordly SEC.

“I was the only one around who was bored and broke and didn’t have a job. So it fit,” he said with a smile.

The strangest part of Perno’s tale is not where a former college baseball coach in 2016 gets a head high school football job at 48, despite having coached exactly as many football games as Brad Pitt. The strangest part is that he was available in the first place.

First, after a four-year ebb in the program that included too much tragedy — two players suffering paralyzing injuries — and too few victories, Georgia AD Greg McGarity fired Perno in 2013.

It’s a cut that never quite healed, and Perno will go to his grave upset and confused about his ending at UGA. Worth note: In the three seasons since Perno’s firing, Georgia baseball has yet to hang up a winning record.

Just as baffling to Perno was the quiet that met his efforts to get another college baseball job. “I think a lot of people felt like there was something else there (in his Georgia firing). People were like, ‘I don’t quite understand this,’ ” he said. “I didn’t either.”

He did some television work with ESPN and the SEC Network. Banked some family time. And waited. And waited.

Until he could wait no more. “What brought me back is I missed the games. I missed the practices,” he said. “I loved working with ESPN and the SEC Network. But it was boring in a sense. No connection with the team, you’re by yourself.

Gladiators athletic director Jon Ward admits hiring Perno was an out-of-the-box move. Perno sold himself on his energy and ability to build a staff and a team.

The AD was convinced. “I knew he was the right choice the first team meeting. When he walked in the room, the kids just locked in,” Ward said.

“He told me up front he knew how to run a program and put people in place who get the job done. He didn’t try to come across as an X and O guy, just that he understood the game and he was a quick learner,” Ward said.

The venerable Henderson, winner of three state titles at Clarke Central and still around and kicking at 88, required no convincing. “I’ve never coached a young man who put more into what he was doing than David. Never once in four years coaching him in football and baseball did I have to tell him to go again because he wasn’t going full speed,” he said.

The Gladiators have run through the most difficult part of their schedule — they have gotten powerhouse Buford behind them — and were 3-4 entering this Friday. The playoffs remain a possibility (they have been once since 2011).

The storage room has been nearly cleaned out of helmets, a good sign that Perno’s effort to bulk up the size of the program – from middle school feeder level to varsity – is paying off.

Melaney, now the wife of a high school football coach rather than a college baseball coach, said she has found happiness at the grassroots level. Helping serve up the mashed potatoes, chicken fingers and green beans to players before a game can be more enjoyable than one might imagine.

Being already so plugged into the community, Perno enjoyed the advantage of familiarity (for example, he played football and baseball with his quarterback’s father). As he gains familiarity with football, he is leaning heavily on his staff (offensive coordinator Mike Gunn was a head coach at Athens Academy for 23 seasons).

“I was a lot closer to (football) than I appeared,” Perno said. “I loved it. It was my game. I loved playing it. I loved all the strategy part, which is more than in baseball.” But, yes, the former college baseball coach said he’s going to help coach baseball here, too — working with the middle school team.

He is teaching three weight-lifting classes in the morning. That’s something new. And there have been adjustments to working with teenagers not on scholarship. “I love it. I absolutely do. You’re going to have your typical frustrations when they act like knuckleheads. That kind of thing is new to me — when they don’t show up, aren’t really committed.”

But not so strange, really, this former college baseball coach turned high school football coach. Not when you’ve decided that it is all-important to be a part of a team, any team. Not when every day is homecoming.

“I’ve told the team we’re going to finish, finish with the enthusiasm we started with,” Perno said.

“Where it takes us, we’ll see. But we’ll do it together.”