The Word

            It’s the biggest honor yet for the Sylvester resident and River Pointe Golf Club pro to date. Here is some of what will be in Tuesday’s paper:

            ALBANY – River Pointe Golf Club pro Sonny Skinner is the PGA of America’s 2008 PGA Professional Player of the Year, becoming the first with Albany connections to win the award.

Skinner, who lives in Sylvester, will accept the award Jan. 29 during the PGA Merchandise Show at the Orlando (Fla.) Convention Center.

“I’m certainly honored because of it,” said Skinner, who successfully qualified for the PGA Tour four times (1990, ’92 and ’97-98). “All I really wanted to do (last season) was qualify for the PGA Championship, which I did, and this award came as a result of me striving toward that goal.”

Skinner’s second-place finish in the PGA Professional National Championship at Greensboro’s Reynolds Plantation last year earned him an appearance in August’s PGA Championship, which was his first-ever major. Although he did not make the cut in that major held in Michigan, he was the lone player in that event without a three-putt.

She was a track star for the Lady Rams before contininuing her success at Georgia.

Somewhere right now, Donald Pittman is pricing UHauls.

Pittman, the Rams’ offensive coordinator for the past seven seasons, was hired Wednesday as the new head football coach at Fort Valley State University — a rival program to ASU that hasn’t beaten the Rams since 2001.

The announcement came just after 1 p.m. today as the Macon Telegraph first reported the news. Here is their story.

And by the way, The Herald knew of the news shortly after it happened, but was unable to post until now because of the much more pressing news in Southwest Georgia on Wednesday that Cooper Tire was closing, affecting thousands of familes in the area.

Best wishes to all those affected.

More details on both in Thursday’s Herald.

Hello from up in North Ga where I grew up (here on vacation). But while I lie in the bed watching college basketball on ESPN, I found this by Macon Telegraph sports writer Michael Lough. Here’s the “Cliff’s Notes” version of his story. According to the report, Albany State offensive coordinator Donald Pittman, Carror Wright — who led Dougherty to the 2005 state GHSA Class AAA title game and now is at Southwest, Macon –and Kentucky State offensive line coach (not to mention former Kentucky and Baylor head coach) Guy Morriss are the finalists for the vacant Fort Valley State head coaching job. The new coach at FVSU is scheduled to be named at 1 p.m. today.

I just texted Pittman and got a response back that he is going there for another interview today. And considering the scheduled announcement of a new coach is also today, I myself find it hard to believe that Wright and Morriss will also be there for interviews. It’s possible, though.
But then again, naming a college football head coach in the past has not been like some version of American Idol where two or three finalists are standing next to each other while a winner is chosen. I believe the job is Pittman’s. Pittman knows the Rams’ offense inside and out (after all, he has run the offense since 2002), and FVSU wants terribly to beat Albany State (the Wildcats have not defeated the Rams since 2001). Want to please the FVSU alumni? Beat Albany State. Want to please the FVSU trustees? Beat Albany State.

Granted, all the other games are probably deemed as an important game to win also. But Believe me. In this rivalry? One where they fill the stadium in Columbus year in and year out? This game is given a LITTLE more credence.

Sooooo……

Watcha think?

Worth County Athletic Director Scotty Ward will be the next football coach of the Rams, the school said Tuesday.

Ward, who takes over for the departed Harris Rainbow — now at Walnut Grove just outside of Atlanta after going 14-19 with Worth County and leaving after three seasons — inherits a Rams team that started out as No. 1 in The Herald Fab 5 Poll, but fell completely out of the ranks by the end of the season and finished 5-5, missing the playoffs.

More details in Wednesday’s Herald, including reaction.

Just got confirmation from both Albany State head coach Mike White and offensive coordinator Donald Pittman that Pittman will interview for the Fort Valley State head football coaching job on Saturday. more details in Saturday paper

Well.. so much for those two tv stations’ reports late yesterday that Mushcamp will likely be named the Tigers’ coach today

WVUE in New Orleans first reported late Thursday that former Auburn defensive coordinator and current Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp will “likely” be Auburn’s new football coach today, replacing the resigned Tommy Tuberville. Fox 10 in Mobile, Ala., also picked up the story and if you were watching ESPN in at 1:45 in the morning and had nothing else to do like I did, you will see that ESPN attributed the story to Mobile
OK, I will give a warning, here. see where the story says, “Likely?” Well, that is nowhere near “definitely.” For what it’s worth, I thought I’d post it, anyway for your pleasure/entertainment/boredom since it’s this late (or early) .. lol
If it IS definitely Muschamp, the Tigers will hire another coach with Georgia connections since Muschamp played for the Bulldogs. Ex-Auburn coach Pat Dye also played for Georgia. Muschamp played high school football at Darlington School in Rome and played safety for Georgia and was a college roomate of former Georgia QB/current radio analyst Eric Zeier while playing in Athens.

Worth County coach Harris Rainbow resigned as head football coach today. He accepted a job to coach Walnut Grove High School, a new school opening in Metro Atlanta. Under his direction, the Rams went 5-5 in 2008 and missed the playoffs for the first time in his three seasons in Sylvester. Last season, the Rams won their first playoff game since 1999. Overall, Rainbow notched a 14-19 record at Worth and 23-40 overall.

Rainbow said he is looking forward to building the new program from scratch. Walnut Grove will play a JV schedule in 2009 with plans to go varsity the next season.

“They offered me the job this past weekend,” said Rainbow, who is a Marietta, Ga. native. “It’s a chance to be closer to home. I did it because I feel its the best thing for me and my family. We’re expecting our first child. I hate to leave but sometimes you have to do what’s in the best interest of your family.”

Worth County athletic director Scotty Ward said the school will take a few days before it sits down to talk about the next coach.

I caught up with ex-Auburn offensive line coach Hugh Nall yesterday for an exclusive interview. Sorry it took so long to give a link here, but there was a computer glitch this morning concerning the story and I wanted to wait til that was cleared up before posting it. Nall is a chief operating officer at a local company and he started there Monday. He really seemed, to me, to be in high spirits in light of what’s happened in the past week. He’s definitely a people person, which no doubt was a reason he was able to lure local recruits from the past such as Aairon Savage and Troy Reddick of Westover (Savage currently starts for Auburn but missed this past season due to an injury), and current Lee County star Tyler Knight, who will attend junior college before enrolling at Auburn.
For you Georgia fans, he has ties to the Bulldogs as well, having started at center on the 1980 national championship team. He was a game captain for the Ga-Tenn. game that Herschel Walker ran over Bill Bates.

Welcome to Albany, Coach (once a coach, always a coach, I always say).

Best of luck.