Changing of the guard begins at Russellville

By Staff
Jason Cannon, Franklin County Times
The Doug Goodwin era at Russellville High School officially begins tomorrow with the new coach's first day on the job.
While the anticipation of his arrival at the school this week is high, Goodwin says his goals for the next five days are simple.
"I'm the new guy," he said. "I'm just going to do a lot of observing. I want to see how coach fill-in-the-blank does his job. I just want to watch and see what goes on."
Aside from looking around, Goodwin said he hopes to do a lot of handshaking, too.
"One of the first things I want to do is meet the coaches and the players," he said. "I want to talk to them and start developing relationships."
While Goodwin is going to be the new kid on the block, he's not totally unfamiliar with the coaches on staff.
"Coach (Perry) Swindall and I have been friends for a few years," he said. "We'd see each other at coaching clinics and he'd always have a few assistants with him. But as far as knowing them on a personal level, I really don't know any of them."
During the interview and hiring process that followed, Goodwin has visited the Golden Tigers' campus three times, but he said the tight schedule between his interviews with Russellville administration and his responsibilities at Demopolis made it hard to meet any of the players.
"School was in when I was on campus, so all the players were in class. And with (Demopolis) being three hours away, it really put a damper on any opportunities I may have had to meet the staff or players," he said.
Once the meet and greet is over, Goodwin said he'll begin to evaluate his assistant coaches to see what roles they hope to play on the 2007 campaign.
"I need to talk to the coaches, see which of them have other plans and see what they may want to do," he said.
Goodwin said several of his assistants from Demopolis have expressed interest in following him to Russellville, however space and staff limitations could hinder that.
"If there are some assistants (at Russellville) who decide not to stay, any coaches I might bring with me would have to fill teaching slots at Russellville," he said. "You have to fill the academics side first."
Russellville begins football practice April 30.