One choice didn’t force Daniel Merchant to turn his back on his alma mater.
Instead, when Merchant learned in January that the head football coach position at Sulligent High School was open again, the 2004 graduate of the school re-applied for the position.
It didn’t matter to Merchant that last year the school selected Dennis Robbins for the position. What mattered to Merchant this time was if it was God’s will for him to be at Sulligent High, that is where he was going to go.
Later this year, that is where Merchant will be after he was approved last week to be the school’s new football coach. Initially, Merchant was going to start at Sulligent High next month, but he said Thursday in a text message that he will finish the school year in his current position at the Lowndes County School District alternative school and begin work at Sulligent High in June.
“There was a lot of thought that went into it, but I guess you could chalk it up to God’s will,” Merchant said. “We wanted to do what He wanted us to do.”
Merchant spent the past football season as defensive coordinator at West Lowndes High. Merchant, the former head football coach at Oak Hill Academy in West Point, led a defense that forced 38 turnovers and helped the Panthers (5-6) just miss out on a playoff berth.
Merchant thanked West Lowndes High Principal Cynthia McMath and head football coach Anthony King and LCSD alternative school principal Charles Jackson for giving him a chance to work at the schools. He said he enjoyed his time there, but he said the chance to go back home to Sulligent was too much to pass up.
“It is exciting. That is for sure,” Merchant said when asked what it felt like to be returning to his alma mater. “I guess it won’t hit me until I get out there and start to work. I am definitely excited and looking forward to it. But football is still football. We’re going to have to get after it.”
Merchant will replace Dennis Robbins, a former assistant coach at Lafayette High in Mississippi. Robbins was coach for most of the 2014 season before he left the team before the end of the season. Sulligent, which had won only nine games in the three seasons prior to Robbins’ arrival, finished 6-5 this season and lost to Randolph County 45-7 in the first round of the Alabama High School Athletic Association Class 2A playoffs. Matthew Byars finished the season as the team’s interim coach.
Merchant said he wasn’t fazed by the challenge of working at a school that hasn’t had stability in its football program in a number of years. Former Smithville High coach Dwight Bowling led the Sulligent program from 2006-2010 before he was arrested in September 2010 in Mississippi. In June 2011, Bowling pleaded guilty to numerous Mississippi state court charges of luring teenage boys into having sex. Ronnie Hubbert led the Blue Devils to an 11-3 record and a trip to the third round of the AHSAA Class 2A playoffs in 2010. Scott Marchant, a former assistant and head football coach at Pickens County High, replaced Bowling and spent three seasons at the school.
The coaching turnover doesn’t bother Merchant because he is familiar with change. Merchant, who is from Sulligent, Alabama, worked for two years as defensive coordinator at Columbus Christian School in Steens, which used to be called Immanuel Christian School. He was part of a coaching staff that included head coach Shawn Gates and assistant coach Bubba Davis that helped lead the Rams to the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools playoffs in 2010. Merchant spent the spring of 2012 as a baseball coach at Nettleton High before leading the Oak Hill Academy football team for two seasons. Merchant went 11-12 and guided Oak Hill Academy to the MAIS Class AA playoffs in those two seasons. The back-to-back playoff appearances were the program’s first since the 1989-90 seasons. Oak Hill Academy was 0-10 in 2011 the year prior to Merchant’s arrival. Merchant was the Raiders’ fourth head coach in six seasons when he arrived. The program was 7-46 in the five years before he took over.
“It will be the same approach (at Sulligent High) to get them in and to work them hard in the weight room and to get that mental edge turned around,” said Merchant, who played football for four years at Sulligent High. “We have to be more physical. We have to bring that physicality back. That definitely helped at Oak Hill Academy.”
Merchant played on the offensive and defensive lines at Sulligent High. He said he played for Steve Herron his freshman and sophomore seasons, for James Pharr his junior season, and for Brian White, currently the defensive coordinator at Caledonia High, his senior season. He said someone told him Sulligent High has had 10 coaches in the past 16 years, but he said it is his goal to change that.
“I am just trying to find the right fit and a school where I can stay a long time,” Merchant said. “Sulligent is where I hope to stay and make it my home and, hopefully, retire there. … I want to provide some stability and be there for a while and make it my own.”
Merchant will finish the school year as a science teacher at the alternative school at West Lowndes Middle School. He said he isn’t sure what subjects he will teach at Sulligent High in the 2015-16 school year. But he is excited about going back home to a school that had its first taste of success in football in several years. He said the success he had at Oak Hill Academy gives him confidence he will be able to help Sulligent build a solid foundation for the future.
“We really got after it,” Merchant said. “We preached to the guys on defense that we had to be in the right spot at the right time and we had to read keys on defense. We were pretty aggressive and blitzed a good bit and put pressure on quarterbacks. It worked out because we scored 30 points off takeaways and had 19 interceptions and forced 19 fumbles.
“I want to get in there and I want to win. I want to bring that mind-set there. There probably is pressure for myself because I want to do good. That is how I want it to be. I want to win. I want to win and I want to help develop the kids to be better athletes and to be better kids on and off the field. That is my coaching goal, and I think I can do that. Football is still football. We’re still going to have to coach them up.”
Reports from The Associated Press were included in this report.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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