There’s a long history of controversial coaches being featured in TV series. One of those coaches with a controversial past is now back as a head coach at the highest level of high school football in Alabama. That would be Rush Propst, who was featured on MTV’s Two-A-Days in 2006-07 (covering the 2005 and 2006 seasons) while he was the head coach at Hoover High School, and eventually resigned in 2007 following a wild saga of reporting on his “second family,” involving an extramarital affair and a child out of wedlock. ESPN eventually featured that saga in the E:60 segment “Friday Night Lies”:
Most recently, Propst has been the associate head coach and athletics director at Coosa Christian High School in Gadsen, Alabama. He took that role in January. But Ben Thomas of Alabama Media Group reported Thursday that Propst now looks set to take a head coaching job at 6A Pell City High School, although the deal isn’t yet done:
In case anyone missed my follow up tweet, coach Propst said this is not a done deal. A final decision or announcement may not be made until Friday. Pell City is looking to replace Steve Mask as head coach. https://t.co/cJACD8bZM3
— Ben Thomas (@BenThomasPreps) March 30, 2023
Thomas wrote that Pell City officials say no coach has been approved yet, but that could change Friday:
Pell City superintendent James Martin told AL.com this afternoon that no candidate had been approved yet as the school searches for a replacement for Hall of Fame coach Steve Mask.
He did say, however, there would be a called board meeting at 8 a.m. Friday. If a coach is approved, an official announcement is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Pell City Center for Education and Performing Arts.
Propst hasn’t been a head coach in Alabama since that 2007 exit from Hoover (which came after a lot of initial denials of his extramarital affair, and even a firing of the reporter who broke the story). And that was only the first controversy for him. He then took a head coaching job at Colquitt County High School in Georgia and won two 6A state titles there, but initially received a year’s suspension for headbutting one of his own players (he appealed, and that was reduced to a reprimand). He was then removed from the Colquitt County job in 2019 following an investigation, which determined he gave pills to students, owed more than $400,000 in delinquent taxes, and more.
Later, Propst was also featured on Netflix’s Titletown in 2021 while he was coaching at Valdosta High School in Georgia. His time at Valdosta saw controversy over recruiting and undue influence, and four players were eventually declared ineligible and the team was barred from the postseason for a year. That, and Propst’s claims there that Alabama and Georgia pay recruits, got featured on Outside The Lines (as seen at top):
But, Propst told AL.com’s Mark Heim earlier this year that he blames the TV coverage for some of the issues he’s run into:
“TV does a lot,” Propst said. “I think that has as much to do with it as anything. Controversy plus the TV exposure that I’ve received has driven that thing. I’m ready to back away from that, try to be non-controversial as best I can.”
If Propst does get this head job, it will be interesting to see if he can live up to that plan of being non-controversial.
[AL.com; top image via ESPN on YouTube]
