Posey steps down after one season as St. James football coach
Neal Posey led St. James to an 11-3 season in his one year as the head coach. He resigned earlier this week for an unnamed college assistant coaching position. (File Photo)
By TIM GAYLE
When Jimmy Perry decided to retire as the St. James football coach following the 2022 season, he felt that Neal Posey was the perfect choice to take over, but cautioned that Posey wouldn’t be with the Trojans long before a collegiate program offered him a job.
Perry’s cautionary tale came to fruition on Monday when Posey was offered a job as an offensive analyst for a major university, leading to his resignation on Tuesday as the Trojans’ football coach after one season.
“When I tell people where I’m going, they’re like, ‘oh, yeah, there’s no way you can turn that down,’” Posey said. “I’m not going to be a position coach, I’m going to be an analyst, but my foot’s in the door and I can hopefully go up from there.”
He withheld the name of the university until he was cleared in a background check later in the week and the university would release the information.
“On Friday afternoon at workouts, I’m 100 percent St. James, no offers, no nothing,” Posey said. “Then, all of a sudden on Monday, I’m offered. That’s what I was telling some people. They were like, ‘Have you always wanted to be coaching in college, always been looking for this spot?’ Honestly, no. I love being a family man. I love my two kids, love my wife and my dad and mom and always thought in high school you could be that family man. So I never thought of college. But as you get older and the idea creeps into your head, it just progressed.”
On Tuesday morning, he told his players of his decision.
“That was hard telling the kids,” Posey said. “Afterwards, I went to the coaches and said, ‘Did I sound stupid?’ Because I have no clue what I said because I blacked out. It was hard. I love these kids so much. These seniors, especially, I’ve been with them since the sixth grade because I did middle school P.E. when they were in the sixth grade, seventh grade and eighth grade. I coached them in middle school basketball, JV baseball and varsity football so I’ve seen them grow from the sixth grade up.”
Posey, the son of former Jeff Davis boys’ basketball coach Terry Posey and the grandson of former Huntingdon College basketball coach Neal Posey, was a standout quarterback at Macon East Academy who continued his playing career as a quarterback for Huntingdon College from 2010 to 2012.
He got into coaching in 2013 for two years under Randy Ragsdale at Trinity, coaching wide receivers and quarterbacks before joining Perry’s staff at St James in 2015.
In 2018, he was promoted to offensive coordinator and held that role in 2022 when the Trojans won the 3A state championship. Perry retired following the 2023 season and Posey was named as the head coach, leading the Trojans to the 3A semifinals with an 11-3 record before losing to eventual state champion Mobile Christian.
The Trojans will conduct a search for a replacement, but Posey offered no insight on his replacement.
“They asked me,” he said. “Of course, there are ideas and people, but it’s like I told the kids, I’ve been there for nine years and Coach Perry had been there for 12 years and we’ve put a lot of effort into this program. I was only the head coach for a year, but I was just trying to keep the train rolling. Whoever’s next, the school is going to make sure they fit that mold to keep our St. James School and program going.”