By STEPHEN DAWKINS / Clanton Advertiser

CLANTON – Spain Park assistant football coach Brian Carter was named Chilton County High’s athletic director and football coach April 30 by the Chilton County Board of Education.

Carter, a 1996 Billingsley graduate, will take over at CCHS after two years at Spain Park, where he served as an assistant football and assistant baseball coach. Though Carter will be moving closer to home, he applied for the position for other reasons, also.

“I feel like it’s a great opportunity for me to be an athletic director and coach at a good school,” Carter said. “I’m very excited about the opportunity to lead not only the football program but the athletic program in general.”

Carter will replace Steve McCord, who announced in February his intention to retire and who helped Carter with the transition.

“He impressed me from the very beginning,” CCHS principal Larry Mahaffey said about Carter. “We’re not looking for another Steve McCord because he’s a legend in his own right. We’re losing a good man, and we’re getting a good man.”

Mahaffey said Carter will begin his tenure with lots of support because he is from the area. Carter, who was the head baseball coach and assistant football coach at Jemison from the fall of 2003 until the spring of 2006, is still employed by Spain Park, so he will teach in Hoover during the day and drive to Clanton to get in as much spring work with the team as he can.

Carter said his goals for the program include bringing together Clanton’s football players and coaches from all levels of the sport, including even youth programs. The idea is that if players move up through an organized system that teaches many of the same things, the end results would be more polished.

Carter also said he wants to get the Clanton community striving toward the same goal, something he said was in place at Spain Park.

“One thing I learned from my time up there is to use your community’s resources to help – not just with athletics but with academics, also.

“We’re trying to make kids better individuals at the same time [as their athletic careers]. We want the type of kids that, when they leave, when they graduate, they want to come back.

“I feel like that’s what we can do in Clanton.”

But, before all those long-term goals can be met, Carter must meet his players and fellow coaches, even those that don’t play or coach football.

“I want to work just as hard for them as I do for football,” he said