Flournoy welcomed at Central Phenix City: ‘I’m gonna win’

 

 

By JIMMY WIGFIELD

PHENIX CITY, Ala. — Cody Flournoy won’t necessarily feel more weight on his shoulders to succeed at Central Phenix City than he did in Jackson, where he won the last two Class 4A state football championships with some of the best talent the state has ever seen.

It’s true that all of Jackson High’s student body (320) would fit inside Central’s indoor practice facility (capacity 419) with enough room to have dinner on the grounds. The Red Devils’ defensive and offensive coordinators have their own offices, as do the offensive and defensive assistants.

But the expectations to hoist Blue Maps are the same; actually, the Aggies have one more (4) than Central (3).

“It might be worse in Jackson,” Flournoy jokingly said of the pressure to win after being introduced as the Red Devils’ new head football coach Wednesday evening. “It’s a small town and there’s nowhere to hide.”

He said Jackson Mayor Audra Raybon knocked on his door Tuesday night after she learned Flournoy was leaving and welcomed her in for a visit.

“Everybody knows your business before you do,” he chuckled.

Flournoy, whose roots run deep in the Phenix City area, introduced himself to his new team and its supporters from a podium that rested squarely on the 50-yard line of Central’s indoor facility, good field position from which to start building on what is the best five-year span in program history — a record of 57-9 with one Class 7A state championship and two runner-up finishes.

“It’s a lot of responsibility,” Flournoy said. “I’m a steward for this program where we’ve got to take care of these kids, take care of this program, of the tradition, of all the things that everybody’s just poured so much into to make it what it is.”

With players and their parents listening intently, Flournoy sought to reassure those who were shaken by last week’s unexpected resignation of coach Patrick Nix that he is the man for the job.

“If I wasn’t your candidate of choice, that’s OK,” he said. “Support these guys, support this program. Just keep pouring into those guys. What’s gonna happen is I’m gonna win.”

That’s all he did in Jackson, going 69-21 in seven years, including 38-4 the last three seasons with a team that included Alabama tailback E.J. Crowell and South Carolina quarterback Landon Duckworth.

If Flournoy wasn’t the Red Devils’ first choice, it wasn’t apparent in his first meeting with the players and the community.

“Initially it’s a shock because coach Nix and the bond he formed with the guys is really strong,” said Central athletic director Matt Bell, who has known Flournoy for 30 years and played football against him (“He was a hard-nosed, really athletic, do-it-right guy”). “But before we ever even went out and started looking or talking, I had several guys come up saying, ‘Hey, coach, go get the guy from Jackson.’ That told us we were on the right track. We’re super excited and super blessed to be able to get a guy of his caliber.”

Flournoy’s job is to maintain and improve upon a football tradition among the best in the state. Phenix City Schools Superintendent Nathan Walters laid down the marker.

“Winning is not a sometime thing, it’s an all-time thing,” he said, quoting the late, legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi. “You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. I think that describes the Central Phenix City athletic program and especially our football team. We always do the right things the right way for the right reason and we get better every day no matter what.”

The Red Devils’ lineage of great players includes, in recent years, Cam Coleman, Red Morgan, Daylyn Upshaw, Isaia Faga, Justin Ross, E.J. Williams and A.J. Harris. Its NFL players include Rakeem Nunez-Roches, former Alabama stars Jeremiah Castille and Woodrow Lowe and former Auburn stars Ed King and James Joseph.

Flournoy’s record of developing players uch as Crowell and Duckworth is expected to carry over to his new position.

“We had a high level of talent down there,” he said. “I had guys who could play here. My tailback’s at Alabama and my quarterback’s at South Carolina, so when you start saying things like that, that makes people’s ears perk up. It don’t matter what type of football level you’re coaching, that’s high-quality guys that we’re coaching. So, there are a lot of similarities between the type of athletes, the makeup of the teams, the pressure on winning, the expectations, the history.

But the opportunity to coach at the state’s fifth-largest school (enrollment 1,647) was too attractive to pass up.

“Central’s been a big piece of my life,” Flournoy said. “My wife graduated here (in the class of 1998). I played for UAB under coach Lowe. There are so many connections.”

After losing the most successful senior class in school history, Flournoy also knew he was in for a rebuilding period at Jackson, although the Aggies are expected to be extremely strong in Class 3A.

“I wasn’t scared to restart at Jackson but we were going to have to go back and hit some of the basic stuff and tighten some stuff up,” Flournoy said. “That’s a good place but at the same time we’re in a season of prayer right now, 21 days of prayer with Church of the Highlands, and they were talking about some open doors.”

When Nix resigned, the door opened in Phenix City.

“I’m really humbled just to be back here,” said Flournoy, who played at nearby Smiths Station and was an assistant coach at Central under Ron Nelson and Jamey Dubose. “I never would have thought 20 years ago when I started here that I would be back in this position. … The region that I was brought up in and taught how to coach football … it’s talented, good football. Everybody that’s a competitor wants to be at the top and wants to coach at the top level and I had that itch to get back to that level of football.”

Flournoy knows he is now the face of one of the state’s most scrutinized high school programs.

“We won a couple championships at Jackson and man, that was so awesome,” he said. “But I’ve been here before where we didn’t block down on an extra point and we lost a playoff game. Every little play matters, everything matters. That’s the level of football that we’re at here. Coach Dubose told me one time, ‘At the beginning of every football season, there’s only a handful of teams that have a legit shot of winning the championship and Central Phenix City’s one of those every year.’ You’ve got to have talent, good coaching and attention to detail, where every play matters.”