Newly named Ethel High School head football coach Adam Smith is not surprised at all that his first high school head football coaching job will be at an MHSAA Class 1A school.
“Growing up I played football in a small school atmosphere and always really liked it — there is something really special about it,” Smith said. “(Ethel) reminds me a lot of my home school (Loyd Star). I wanted to be at a place where the school was important to the community and you could come in and really make a difference and be a part of something.”
Smith, who is currently the head football coach at Byram Middle School and was formerly an assistant at Loyd Star, was officially approved by the Attala School Board during its Monday night meeting. He replaces Dave McCory, was was removed as head coach of the Tigers following two seasons directing the program.
Smith, who is 30, and his wife Sabrina have two sons, Tucker (4) and Gunner (2). He said he wasn’t sure when he would be able to begin work at Ethel, but planned to visit the school soon and hoped to be able to lead spring football practice for the Tigers.
He said that while his goal is for his teams to be able to run the football, he also understands the need to adapt to the talent available.
“That’s something I’ve experienced where I am now,” he said. “I was told that one type of offense would work, but when we saw what we had we knew needed to adjust and it worked well.”
Smith said his goal is to work hard at making small improvements in the program and individual players and letting things grow from there.
“You need to get the kids fine-tuned on the small things and build on the fundamentals,” he said. “You need to get good at blocking the right way, making hand offs, and taking hand offs. It’s the little things that you can improve on that make the difference. The little things make the big things happen. If you can get really good at something it will lead to a domino effect. At first you work on getting first downs, then touchdowns.”
Ethel was 0-12 last season, following a 2-8 mark in 2018.
