Today’s interviewee is Marist head Alan Chadwick, who led his team to the Class 4A title in 2020. The 30-14 victory over Jefferson in the championship game marked Chadwick’s 399th career victory. He can become the second in state history and, according to High School Football America, the 35th nationally to reach 400. This interview was done by GHSF Daily intern Abbey Walton, whose interview with Chadwick can be seen by clicking here.
Alan Chadwick, Marist head coach
1. Last season, you won your third state title. Why was that team so special? “Well, it was a really special group of kids we had. Any time you’ve got eight starters back on each side of the ball, you’ve got a chance to be a pretty good football team. They’d had a great deal of experience. A lot of them had been playing as sophomores. Some even played and contributed as freshmen. They’ve been around the program. They knew what was expected of them. They knew the work ethic that it took to be successful. They were able to put that together. I think the two things that made them particularly unique was their experience factor and their leadership, and then I think if you throw their athleticism on top of that, it makes for a pretty good combination.” [Derek McDonald, Steve Nahmias, Tyler Hare and Josh Moore were first-team all-state selections, and McDonald, a defensive lineman now at Syracuse, was the 4A defensive player of the year.]
2. For this season, what will be returning skill-wise? “We’ve lost quite a bit. We had eight starters coming back last year, and now we’ve lost eight starters. But at the same time, we’ve got six or seven really, really dynamic football players that are very, very good at their positions. That’s going to be the strength of our team, how well they play, but not just that, how well these fill-ins at these other positions play is going to be the big determining factor of how good a football team we’re going to be. I think we have the right pieces to the puzzle. It’s just going to take some time to put it together because they’re all new. They’re not as experienced and probably not quite as talented, so it’s going to be a challenge. And our schedule has gotten a lot tougher too.” [Marist’s non-region schedule includes Blessed Trinity, Harrison and Bolles of Jacksonville, teams Marist did not play in 2020. Bolles was the Florida 4A runner-up last season.]
3. What that said, with your schedule being tougher, what is something you’re working hardest to accomplish for this season? “I would just say having confidence in themselves that they can do the job, not worrying about the end result, just playing each play as hard as they can, trying to be as perfect as they can. At the end of the game, they can look up at the scoreboard and see how it is. But we’ve got a lot of pieces to mesh and put together, and it’s going to be a challenge for our players as well as our coaches to come up with the right formula.”
4. You could be the second coach in Georgia history after Larry Campbell to get victory No. 400. What are your thoughts that this could be the season? “Well, I hope it is [the season] because it’s only one game, but I hope we win more than that. It could be a big boost for our players to get that early. I’m not that much worried about it. It would be nice for it to come in that first ball game against a very, very great opponent in Blessed Trinity. They’ve got a very talented football team coming back with probably the best running back in the country in Justice Haynes. So it’s going to be a big challenge. We’re just going to have to try to be the best we can and throw it out there and see what happens.” [Marist opens at Blessed Trinity on Aug. 27.]
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