[EKUAlum05]

Shawn Thompson at Wayne County is the coach I think best symbolizes why it is better for High School Programs to show patience.

He has been at Wayne for a long period of time and his first 5 or 6 years was at best mediocre and at worst awful. Wayne stayed patient...Thompson built his feeder system... and as a result their program is probably one of the Top 30 or so programs in Kentucky in terms of the present.


I think too many places simply judge it off the win/loss column and not on the overall state of the program. For a guy to completely change the trajectory of a rural school though it will take time. Most of these places don't have the talent pool in place... it takes developing kids from Youth Football through Middle School and then into High School.

With that said, just because you give a coach 6 years doesn't mean it will assure a positive trend. If a guy simply cannot coach, organize, delegate, or keep numbers up then no reason to beat your head against the wall. I just think to often though schools think they can judge this off a body of work that is entirely too short.