Sanford leaves ACA for job in Texas
Last season, Nate Sanford led Alabama Christian to one of its best seasons ever. But he is returning to Texas to coach at Fort Worth Christian. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
After guiding Alabama Christian Academy’s football program to unprecedented heights, Nate Sanford is heading home.
“We came here from Texas,” Sanford said. “Our families are there. And none of us are getting any younger. I want to be very clear about this: we never would have left here if it wasn’t for the strongest reason you can have and that is family.”
Sanford notified the other coaches in the area in late February about his decision to accept a job as head football coach and athletic director at Fort Worth (Texas) Christian. That move reunites him with the former ACA head of school who hired him in Montgomery, Misty Overman.
“The expectation of excellence in our Cardinal athletic program calls on all of us, coaches, players, parents, and our community to anticipate who God chooses to lead our student-athletes ‘for such a time as this,’” Overman said in a release issued by Fort Worth Christian. “I have known Coach Sanford for many years and I am confident he will lead and challenge us to accomplish our goals for God’s glory.”
He steps down from the most successful tenure in ACA history, having guided the Eagles to 30 wins in his four years as head coach. Only Tim Perry, who went 73-73 in 14 years at the school, has more wins and only John Poitevent, who went 18-7 in two seasons in 1989 and 1990, won at a higher percentage (72 percent) than Sanford’s 61.2 percent.
Sanford is the only coach in school history to post 10-win seasons (both in 2017 and 2020) and has the only undefeated record in region play (7-0 in 2020) since the region format was adopted in 2000. He led the Eagles to the playoffs in all four seasons, part of a school-record five consecutive trips to the playoffs that started when he was the offensive coordinator.
In addition, Sanford has the most playoff wins (five) in school history, guiding the Eagles to two of their four quarterfinal appearances.
“So many tears on both sides, leaving my kids at ACA,” Sanford said. “Students and players, the people I worked with, just good people. Daysha and I have said that from the beginning. The best thing about being here was just the goodness of the people.”
Sanford had coached in the Houston area before coming to Montgomery, serving as the head coach at Northland Christian School (2001-2006), where he compiled a 55-15 record, and at The Woodlands Christian School (2011-2014), where his teams went 32-16. He came to Montgomery in 2016, hired as the offensive coordinator under Bill Moore.
Moore’s team had struggled to score 106 points in a 1-9 season, their second in 5A, but saw improvement once the Eagles dropped back to 4A, scoring 196 points with Sanford as the coordinator, including a 5-2 start (that later involved forfeiting one of those wins).
Sanford took over the team in 2017 and the Eagles soared to a 7-0 start before key injuries and the tougher part of the schedule resulted in an 8-2 finish. Still, ACA beat Northside for its first playoff win since 1992 and advanced to the quarterfinals before losing to Andalusia.
In 2018, ACA started 1-6 before recovering late to secure the fourth spot in the playoffs, where they stunned Lincoln in the first round. In 2019, they started 2-3, finished 4-1 and played Hillcrest-Evergreen to the wire before losing late in the first round of the playoffs.
In 2020, they lost early (Trinity) and late (Montgomery Academy) in the regular season, but won eight games in between, including an overtime victory at St. James that gave the Eagles their first-ever region championship under the current format. ACA set a school record for points (458) and produced the Capital City Conference player of the year in quarterback Jalen Clark before losing to American Christian in the quarterfinals.
While the athletic director’s job at ACA remains unfilled, Sanford insists there were no additional incentives that could have been offered to get him to remain at the school.
“We’re not running from anything here,” Sanford said. “I’ve always operated from the mindset that I’m all in where I’m at and it would take an act of God in my heart to go somewhere else. So that time just came in my heart and Daysha’s heart to be back by our people again.
“We have only good memories here. But our head of school, Greg Glenn, his background is as an AD, so he did a lot of things to fill the visionary side of that role and Manuel Guice … kind of handled the everyday nuts and bolts of it. But everyone knows the athletic secretary, Darla Sutton, is the one who really runs the show.”
He will serve as the head football coach and athletic director at Fort Worth Christian.
“I consider myself 50 percent coach and 50 percent teacher and love both of them,” Sanford said. “I teach sixth and seventh grade and really feel like I couldn’t love it any more than I do. But I did tell Dr. Overman, I can AD and coach or AD and teach or coach and teach but I definitely can’t do all three so I am going to lay the teaching hat aside for this part of my life.”
Before Sanford was a head coach, he had served as the junior high coach (1998-2000) at Fort Worth Christian. His wife Daysha, the cheerleader coach at Faulkner, was the cheerleader coach at Fort Worth Christian during Sanford’s tenure at the school. Her ties to the school actually started much earlier as her father, Ronnie Peacock, served as the head football coach at athletic director at Fort Worth Christian in 1974-79.
Sanford visited the Fort Worth campus earlier this month to visit with players and parents, but will finish out the school year at ACA in what will surely be an emotional three months.
“There’s never a good way to say goodbye,” he said. “The relationships that you make wherever you are is what will stick with you always and that’s what makes it so difficult.”
A search for Sanford’s replacement is under way and Glenn has reportedly narrowed his search to a candidate he knew from his previous role as head of school at Lipscomb Academy in Nashville.