GCHS names new head football coach
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Cats find new leader among their midst in Rotch Dungan
Aycock to remain as defensive cooridinator, assistant head coach and A.D.
By RUSSELL TURNER
Herald Staff
The search for a new head football coach at Greene County High School ended Tuesday with the promotion of offensive coordinator Rotch Dungan to lead the program.
GCHS Principal Scott Bray made the announcement just after noon Tuesday after meeting with other school officials at the district office in Leakesville. Bray also announced that current Wildcat defensive coordinator Jacob Aycock will be promoted to assistant head coach and athletic director at the school.
“We are very excited to have Coach Dungan to lead our program and to solidify the future of GCHS football by promoting Coach Aycock to assistant head coach and athletic director,” Bray told the Herald. “I have said repeatedly how pleased I am with where our football program is at this time and the direction we are headed. Obviously, Coach (Mike) King had a lot to do with that, but so have Coach Dungan and Coach Aycock.”
“We had a tremendous amount of interest in this position, which speaks volumes to me about our school and our program. We interviewed several, high quality coaches that any school would have been excited to have lead their football teams. But, in the end, we felt like we had the best candidate right here and I could not be happier that Rotch Dungan is our new head coach.”
Dungan and Aycock’s promotions were each approved by the Greene County Board of Education prior to Bray making the announcement.
Dungan has an impressive resume that spans nearly 36 years as a teacher and coach. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of South Alabama in 1982 and followed that with a Master’s Degree from the University of Mobile in 1990. His career in public education started in 1984 as a physical education teacher at Calcedaver Elementary School and assistant football coach for Citronelle High School. He had stints as a position coach and offensive coordinator at Satsuma, Jackson and Saraland high schools, before taking a position at George County High School in 2015. Dungan met Mike King while with the Rebels and followed King to Greene County in 2017 and has served as offensive line coach and offensive coordinator for the Wildcats since that time.
Dungan, who has head coaching experience in baseball and track, said Tuesday he had thought many times throughout his 36 years of coaching football about being a head coach and that the timing and circumstances felt right for the Greene County job.
“I am extremely excited about the opportunity,” Dungan said. “I am honored and proud to add my name to the short list of coaches that led this program.”
“I am excited about it. It is a great challenge for me, not just the Xs and Os part, but the whole deal. I am really looking forward to it.”
As far as Xs and Os are concerned, Dungan doesn’t expect any huge changes in approach for the Wildcats on the offensive side of the ball next year. He added that in high school it is important to be able to adjust to the type of players you have on the roster, and from that perspective, he isn’t tied to any one offensive mindset.
“There are absolutely some things I want to tweak and some of that is based on what happened over the course of this past season,” Dungan said. “You should do that every year to some degree.”
“But, we are ready to get going and when we come back from the holiday break we are going to sell to the kids what it is going to take for us to take that next step here at GCHS. You keep doing the same things, then you will get the same results, so you have got to tweak stuff and make adjustments.”
Dungan said he was pleased to have Aycock on board moving forward and that the two of them have already begun making plans for the future. The two started their service at GCHS together in 2017 and Aycock’s work on the defensive side has been a huge part of the Wildcats’ success over the past three seasons. Dungan says he hopes to keep other GCHS assistants on board as well.
“It is absolutely a bonus to have Coach Aycock here,” Dungan added. “Right now our number one focus over the holidays is to cement (the rest of the coaching staff) that and as soon as we get that all figured out, we will look at what else we may need. We are ready to get to work and are going to have a plan for being successful,” he added.
A big part of any success Dungan enjoys will be because of the effort and abilities of the young men he and Aycock will coach. And in that regard, he says coaches at Greene County are blessed.
“I told Coach Bray that I figured out really quickly who these (GCHS) kids are,” Dungan said. “They are hard-working kids. They do what you ask them to do, what you make them do. And, when you have kids that come in and do things the right way and work hard, you are going to be successful, and you can’t ask for much more than that.”
Dungan replaces King, who after three seasons at the helm, left GCHS to chase his dream of being a college coach.
