Carr's journey leads him to Mississippi

Bobby Carr is leaving the state to coach at Presbyterian Christian School in Hattiesburg, Miss. (File Photo)

By TIM GAYLE

After a crazy journey that included job offers at two area high schools, former Autauga Academy coach Bobby Carr is thankful for his new role as the head football coach and assistant athletic director at Presbyterian Christian School in Hattiesburg, Miss. 

Carr had accepted a job from school administrators at Elmore County High in late January and Park Crossing in mid-April, only to have the respective school boards turn in a different decision, leaving the highly successful private school coach without a job before he finally signed a contract with the Mississippi school on Tuesday.

“It’s been crazy with everything that has happened, but God works in mysterious ways and I’m just thankful this all worked out,” Carr said. “It’s opened my eyes to a lot of things, especially the situation in Elmore County. I’ve been a citizen of Elmore County my whole life. It just blew me away that that happened. It just meant God had another plan.

“The same thing happened at Park Crossing. But I’m just so thankful and it feels so good to be wanted and appreciated and I’m looking forward to doing some great things with some great people at Presbyterian.”

Carr stepped down from his position at Autauga Academy after he was offered the job at Elmore County High by principal Wes Rogers, a lifelong friend. But in a crazy twist, the formality of being approved by the Board of Education took a strange detour when the board refused to second a motion to hire him, leaving the position open. 

Carr looked at other positions, primarily as an offensive coordinator at more than one south Alabama school when the Park Crossing job was offered to him. Again, needing only approval from the board, he thought the job was his, only to discover otherwise in a May board meeting.

During that same time, he was offered the head coaching position at Abbeville Christian Academy and listened to school administrators, but he had stepped down from Autauga in search of better insurance and retirement benefits and still wanted a job in the public school ranks.

“The people at Abbeville Christian were extremely nice,” he said, weighing the offer as another arrived from Presbyterian Christian, which had lost their head coach after he accepted an administrative position. 

“I think they actually called Michael McLendon, the AISA executive director, asking for a coach,” Carr said. “He recommended me and they called me Thursday (May 12) and wanted to know when I could meet and I said ‘right now.’”

Carr toured the school the following day and returned on Tuesday morning to sign a contract and meet with parents and players. During the meeting with parents, he revealed a 2019 arrest for driving under the influence -- for which he is finishing up court-ordered classes to comply with the judge’s ruling -- to keep the subject from coming up in Internet searches by parents.  

“I just gave my DUI speech to every parent at the school, about turning a negative into a positive,” he said. “I figured to go ahead and address this and move on.”

While it doesn’t include the state retirement benefits he was looking for, the school offered a raise in pay, along with insurance and retirement benefits that brought the offer in line with any he could receive at the public school level.

“It’s much better and obviously the thing that intrigued me the most was the Blue Cross-Blue Shield (insurance coverage) and the 401K,” he said. “It was a really, really good package they put together.

“The Christian private school setting is good for me, too. It’s similar to what I’m used to.”

The school competes in the highest (6A) classification in the Mid-South Association of Independent Schools, a six-team class that now includes three successful high school coaches from Alabama -- Doug Goodwin at Jackson Prep, Aubrey Blackwell at Jackson Academy and Carr at Presbyterian Christian School. 

“I gave the boys a lot of the rah-rah speeches that I gave when I first got to Edgewood in 2001 and when I first got to Autauga,” Carr said. “If you want to accomplish the big things in life, you’ve got to start doing all the little things right.”

They’ll start working on the little things at the first football workout on May 31. 

“I know we’re way behind,” he said.