By By Tim Cottrell
A week after its announcement, Ted Darby's resignation as head football coach at Escambia County High School became official Monday in an emergency session of the Escambia County School Board at the central office in Brewton.
Originally slated for May 27 – the date at which Darby's contract expired – the date his resignation will become effective has been changed to May 1.
Melvin "Buck" Powell, Superintendent of the Escambia County School System, said he was disappointed with Darby's early exit, but would move forward with finding a head coach for the Blue Devils.
"We accepted his resignation, and we're moving forward," Powell said. "We have some candidates from the previous search that we'll be talking to, but we have to advertise. If someone applies that we're interested in, we'll talk to them."
Powell said the position would be advertised until Monday, April 25, and he hoped to have a candidate hired by Thursday, April 28. The search committee began work yesterday.
"We'll (the search committee) meet tomorrow to look at (candidates) again," Powell said. "We 're going to try to eliminate it down to five people or so. Two people have called that weren't interviewed last time, and we're going to talk to them."
Powell said the situation with Darby would not change the committee's criteria.
"We're looking for a real stable person that knows football to come in here," Powell said. "This place has good athletes, and good people that will support the team. We want someone to come here and be a good football coach. There are people in this school that want to play football and the community wants to see them succeed. You can win here, and we want someone to do that."
In other news during the brief, four-minute meeting, Blaine Hathcock was hired to become head football coach and athletic director at W.S. Neal High School.