Casey Soliday, who won 54 games and a state championship in five seasons as Irwin County’s football coach, retired Friday.
“There were several reasons, one of them that I wanted to see my son play [college] baseball, and I couldn’t do the things I needed to do here as a head coach and put in the time and do that,” Soliday said. ”I’m very appreciative of all the people that made this program what it was. I’m glad that it’s still where it is, one of the best programs in the state.”
Soliday’s son, Cody, is a pitcher at Mercer, a former all-state football player and the quarterback on Irwin’s 2020 state championship team.
Casey Soliday was a high school coach for 31 seasons. He coached at Irwin, a South Georgia school, for nine.
In 2019, he became interim head coach during the terminal illness of head coach Buddy Nobles. They worked together to win the Class A championship, Irwin’s first title since 1975.
After Nobles passed away from a long cancer battle the next month, Soliday was promoted to head coach and led the Indians to the Class A Public championship in 2020.
That win made Soliday the 21st coach in GHSA history to win a football state title in his first official season.
Soliday and brother Erik Soliday, who had won championships at Americus, became the second brothers to win GHSA titles after Lee Campbell and Chad Campbell.
Soliday is from West Virginia and came to Georgia in 2003 to join Erik’s Turner County staff. He also worked at Americus-Sumter, Perry and Henry County.
His record as a head coach was 54-16.
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