By DREW GRANTHUM/Sports Writer

COLUMBIANA — The Shelby County High School Wildcats will have a new head coach at the helm for the 2014 season, according to school principal Gene Rogers. The Wildcats will look to replace former head coach Brent Smith, who led the team for the past two seasons.

The decision “was solidified this week,” Rogers said in a phone interview March 21.

“(We) felt like this was the time to make a change,” Rogers said. “We have posted the position, (and are) changing directions as a program.”
As of 6:01 p.m. on March 21, Smith had not returned a call for comment. Smith was 2-18 in two seasons at Shelby County. Smith came to Shelby County following a three-year tenure at Corner, where he took the Yellow Jackets to the playoffs in 2011.

While the program will be moving in a different direction, Rogers did say both he and the community were thankful for the job Smith did.

“We appreciate (Coach Smith)’s effort the last two season,” he said.
Rogers said that Smith still has a teaching position at Shelby County High He also said SCHS would “work through the process”  to find a new coach in a similar way to any position that needed to be filled.

Rogers said that Heath Childers had been named coach in the interim, and that SCHS leaders are “seeking to name head football coach sometime in the month of April.”