By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

Like picking a Player of the Year, picking a Coach of the Year is tough. A number of factors have to come into play, and there were a number of coaches in the county who had a strong case this season.

Shawn Raney from Spain Park, for example, took his Jaguar team all the way to the 7A state title game and beat Hoover twice in 2015, a feat no other Spain Park team had ever accomplished even once. Andrew Zow at Montevallo finally saw the fruits of his labors in his fourth season as his Bulldog team got over the hump and advanced to the second round of the playoffs with one of the best offenses in the county. Chris Elmore and Watt Parker both coached improved playoff teams at Chelsea and Helena while Heath Childers coordinated one of the best Shelby County offenses in the last decade.

All had great seasons coaching, and all will no doubt be back again next year looking to build off of the successes each had this season. But no one had their work cut out for them and responded in quite the way Mark Freeman did at Thompson.

Freeman came to Thompson in December of 2014 with high expectations. The former head coach at Spanish Fort had won four AISA state titles at Bessemer Academy from 2002-2007 before winning two 5A titles at Spanish Fort. The Spanish Fort team he left, as it so happens, won the 6A title this year and was probably the best team across the state regardless of classification. He left that highly successfully program and took over a Thompson team that had not won a football game since November of 2013, and hadn’t been at or above .500 since 2006.

The Thompson community desperately wanted a competitive, or at least competent, football team, and getting an accomplished coach like Freeman was a tremendous step in the right direction. But that was just half the battle. Freeman then actually had to figure out a way to coach his new team.

The Warriors did not make the playoffs in 2015, but they did finish the season at 5-5 in one of the toughest regions in 7A. It was the first .500 finish in almost a decade. The offense averaged a shade under 28 points per game while the defense gave up less than 21, both a team best since that 2006 season. In less than a year, Freeman helped to transform the Warriors from an afterthought into a team in the hunt for a playoff berth. Thompson also lost two region games by a combined five points, and will no doubt learn to win those games the longer Freeman is at the helm.

Freeman, who will also be the head coach of the Alabama All-Star team in the Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Game on Dec. 12, has once again proven himself to be among the elite coaches with the job he has been able to do at Thompson in just a single season. As long as he stays around, Thompson will continue to see success on the gridiron, and he is the 2015 Shelby County Coach of the Year.