Tison chosen as next Panther head football coach
It didn’t take long for Clinch County to find a replacement for retiring head football coach Jim Dickerson.
A week after Dickerson announced his retirement at a Clinch County Board of Education meeting, Don Tison has been named the next Panther head football coach. Tison was announced as the head football coach at a called school board meeting Friday morning.
Tison’s hiring keeps the head coaching position within the “Panther football family,” as Tison is a 1999 CCHS graduate, a longtime assistant, and the son of former head football coach Donald Tison. The Panthers’ football stadium is named after the late Donald Tison, who was Clinch County’s head football coach from 1974-1994 and led the Panthers to their first two state football titles (1988 and 1991).
After being a standout player for the Panthers, Don Tison returned to his alma mater and the CCHS coaching staff in 2006. In 2010, he was named offensive coordinator, overseeing the most prolific offense in Panther history in 2010 (628 points that season). He has been the offensive coordinator for four of the school’s eight state title teams (2010, 2015, 2017, 2018). For this past season, his Panther offensive unit averaged 35.5 points per game.
As a player, Tison still holds two school records – most passing yards in a game (280 yards, vs. Savannah Christian in 1997), and longest field goal (52 years, vs. Ware County, in 1996).
Tison is replacing Dickerson, who is retiring in June as the winningest football coach in CCHS history, with a record of 152-44-1. The previous mark was held by the older Tison (148-72-6). Dickerson won five state titles and seven region championships in 15 years as the Head Panther.
At Friday’s meeting, the board announced that CCHS Principal Denise Brown chose Tison to be the next head football coach. The board then approved the transfer of Rance Morgan from a science position to a physical education position at the high school (replacing Dickerson) for the next school year. The board indicated they will now advertise for a science teaching position at CCHS.
The News will have more details on this story in its next print edition.
