After spending eight years as the head coach of Caledonia’s football program, Michael Kelly is set to join Noxapater Attendance Center as the school’s new athletic director and head football coach, the school announced Friday.
Kelly, who coached the Cavs to a 37-51 record, including a 1-9 finish to the 2025 season, said it wasn’t an easy decision to leave a place where he’s made a home and great relationships, but he’s excited to get down to Noxapater and get to work.
“It all started when I wanted to be a head football coach,” Kelly told The Dispatch. “I’ve been coaching for 21 years and God gave me the opportunity to take over here at Caledonia as my first opportunity to be a head coach. I think over time you begin to look at athletics as a whole and you see how the athletes contribute to the school as well, not just football players, and you kind of want to put your hand on all of it and your vision on all of it through fundraising, partnerships in the community and building up other coaches and mentoring coaches and having a great liaison and partnership between administration and coaches. That’s always intrigued me. I just never had the opportunity to do it, and God put this pathway in front of us.
“It certainly wasn’t an easy decision anytime you had relationships and things of that nature, but we’re looking forward to getting started in Noxapater, not only being the head football coach, but also working with all the other sports and other coaches and administration and see if we can move all the athletics forward to represent that community and town very well. We’re excited.”
Kelly is replacing former athletic director and head football coach Caleb Kelly (no relation). He led the football team and athletic department for the last three years and posted a 19-24 overall record. In Caleb Kelly’s last season, the Tiger finished 5-6 and earned a berth into the first round of the Class 1A playoffs.
“I’ve known Caleb in my time here when he got there,” Michael Kelly said. “The coaching tree and coaching network is really small and we stick together, and he’s done a really good job there. … Noxapater comes with a lot of tradition. They love their sports, they love their football and we certainly have big shoes to fill. I love expectations, I love high standards and we are ready to get right into them.”
He said the Tigers are getting someone who loves investing in kids and someone who is passionate about building a football program and creating excellence in the classroom.
“This is not a job to me. This is a calling that I do not take lightly,” Kelly said. “God has put me in this position the last 20 years to be around young people and motivate them and help transform lives and let them transform mine. … I bring a lot of energy to the table and we’re going to hit the ground running.”
But as he gets ready to start his new adventure a little further south, Kelly said he is grateful to have led the Cavaliers and said he couldn’t have asked for better players to coach.
“We’ve had a great eight years here. … We’ve had some really great young men come through our football program that have impacted my life and our coaches lives,” he said. At the end of the day, I’m not going to take credit for where this program is and where it’s grown into because all the credit goes to those young men. They are the ones who came in and dedicated themselves and bought into what we were trying to do and they deserve all the credit.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
