When I close my eyes and I imagine Paul's last game before he retires, we are standing on Ethel Tiger Field and we walk off together as we have on many Friday nights for the past seven years. However, that's not going to be the case.
On Tuesday, Paul told his players that he would no longer be the head coach at Ethel High School and that he had accepted a position as the offensive coordinator at Ridgeland High School. Over the last two months, I've shed a lot a tears about this. Both, happy and sad. This wasn't something Paul sought out, Coach Burton came to him and it was just too good an offer to refuse. Paul is an offensive minded football coach and this also meant a pay raise.
I remember sitting on the floor of the old field house, matching practice cleats and thinking "What have we gotten ourselves into?" He had no money in his football account, no player practice clothes and the uniforms had holes in them. Heck, it was June, school was out and we didn't even know who was playing football. And so the work began, for not only Paul, but for me too.
There's been a lot of parenting and a lot of love that has gone into this 7 year journey at Ethel and I know that the work will continue without us.
We don't plan to move. We will still reside in Kosciusko. We still plan on attending some sporting events at Ethel and we still need some of the kids to help us out at the monthly antique auction. So we aren't going away from everything.
Plus, once you're a Tiger, you are always a Tiger!
