J.R. Tidwell/FCT
Red Bay head boys basketball coach Greg Cash tries to pump up his team in an area semifinal game against the Phil Campbell Bobcats at Colbert Heights last season.

The coaching carousel has struck Red Bay early this year. Just one eight months after having to find a new head football coach, Red Bay will now have to find someone to take over the boy’s basketball program.

Head coach Greg Cash, who led the team to a win at the county tournament and a playoff berth this past season, has resigned from that post.

He has been the head boy’s basketball coach at Red Bay for the past eight years and a coach for a total of 22 years.

He has coached basketball, baseball, softball, football and track in those 22 long years, and now he feels like it is time to make a change in his life.

“Honestly I need to spend a little bit more time with my own kids. As a coach you spend a lot of time away from your family. That’s pretty much it,” he said.

Red Bay has won the county tournament three times and made the playoffs three out of the last four years under his tenure as head coach.

Being a coach at a school means long hours of hard work and time spent away from your family, and that’s what made Coach Cash ultimately make this decision.

“Pretty much four night a week you’re gone from your own kids,” he said. “Monday through Friday and a few Saturdays and holidays you’re gone. They weren’t always at the games, and you end up spending a lot more time with someone else’s kids than your own. Those are the kind of things you can’t get back, and one of the regrets I’ll have until the day I die is how much time I missed spending with my own kids.”

“I don’t regret being with other people’s kids and coaching them because that’s what I wanted to do. I like sports, I like being around them and I know how important coaches are to kids. I grew up without a father, and a lot of times the coaches I grew up around were my father figures. I don’t know how long I’ll stay out, I just know I want more time with my family now.”

While Cash will remain in his current role as a teacher at Red Bay, ceasing to be a coach will give him some newfound free time to spend with his family, and tackle some other pursuits as well.

“I picked up a part time job at a restaurant here in Red Bay,” he said. “That may seem like a strange thing to some people, but I’ve always like being around people and it’s something I chose to do. Some people walk in and see me working and get confused, but it’s something I wanted to do.”

Being a coach for 22 years means the duties involved have taken up much of his time, and some aspects of the job will certainly not be easy to do without for Cash.

“I’m going to miss being around the kids,” he said. “When you’re young you’re all gung ho about it and all about winning and moving up, getting another coaching job. But once you’ve been doing it awhile you realize it’s not about you, it’s about the kids making good memories and the fun times they had.”

“My favorite saying is it’s not life or death; it’s just high school sports. A lot of people forget that, and that takes a lot of the fun out of it for the coaches and the kids. These are the memories these kids will have and that’s what it’s all about. 10 years from now they won’t remember all of the wins or losses, but they will remember the good times they had.”

With Cash leaving the coaching ranks, the Franklin County Board of Education has been left with another spot to fill this offseason.

“We haven’t accepted his resignation yet,” said Franklin County Superintendent Gary Williams. “I figure next Tuesday we will. I think Coach Cash has done a good job at Red Bay teaching and coaching, and I certainly hate to see him leave the coaching ranks.”

“I wasn’t surprised because I had been hearing that he might be giving up his coaching duties soon. I guess I was sort of surprised, but I had been hearing for a short time that it might happen.”

Finding a new coach for a sport can be complicated by the fact that coaches also have to be teachers, and a teaching position has to be open to bring in a new coach from elsewhere.

“At this time of the year we don’t know what kind of teaching units, if any, we’ll have to fill for next year,” Williams said. “We won’t be making any plans before May. This time of year everything is kind of uncertain, so at this time we don’t know what we’ll offer as far as the teaching position goes.”

“It presents a challenge to us because at this point we don’t have a teaching position open. Coach Cash is only giving up coaching, so his position won’t be available. It does present a problem at times. You can’t just ask somebody; you have to have a teaching job open. That’s what we’ll have to look for in between now and the end of the school year.”