COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus South third-year football coach George Yates, who also is an alumnus of the school, remains intense and dedicated to helping the program excel.
What You Need To Know
- Columbus South recorded a 44-18 victory vs. Bellefontaine in last week’s playoff opener
- Coach George Yates, a 1999 South graduate, has been at the helm for three years and posted a 15-9 record
- Yates believes in this year’s team and said great teams are led by players
Yates, who said it’s been his dream job to coach the team ever since he was a teenager, led the Bulldogs to their first back-to back-winning seasons in 30 years, including a 44-18 victory vs. Bellefontaine in last weekend’s playoff opener.
“Water hit me. I heard our kids yelling. I heard horns honking, and it felt like the whole south side just said, ‘Finally,’ you know?” said Yates.
Although Yates and his staff can be disciplinarians when needed, they believe great teams are led by players.
“We’re taking kids that haven’t traditionally been leaders and asking them to do little things like, ‘Hey, come lead stretches,’ and you take them out of your comfort zone,” Yates said. “We’ll ask guys to make major decisions and it’s that repeated theme of this is on you, this is your football team.”
And team leaders said a lot has changed from four years ago when the team got too used to losing.
“Now, we have the opportunity to go in the ring and everything’s changed. We’re at practice every day. We’re putting in the work that we need to. If somebody makes a mistake, we have to make sure the mistake they made and help them with it, not yell at them, but coach it up on it,” said Ronmel Robinson, a senior quarterback.
“I think it was the Marion-Franklin loss that really made us click. It was like, ‘Ok, guys we got the players to do it this year. We just got to do it,’” said Tyreese Ford, a junior running back.
Although the team has only played four games on the season because of the pandemic, Yates is confident this will be a season to remember for the players, coaches, and fans, alike.
“It all worked out in the end and now we’re getting to do some things we’ve never done in the history of this program in 118 years,” Yates said. “I don’t want the center of focus to be me. I want to be focused on these guys who have made this happen. I’m just a guy with some ideas that I scribbled down on paper and they bring this thing to life, and they’re the hearts and fighters that make it happen.”
Columbus South faces perennial playoff team Sheridan on Friday.
