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Mom’s campaign to fire FCHS football
coach loses steam

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

The campaign launched by the mother of a Fayette County High student athlete to get head football Coach Tommy Webb fired after back-to-back losing seasons has apparently lost steam.

Principal Charles Warr said last week that nothing has changed in the three weeks since Carolyn Jones told the Board of Education her 10th-grade son “has a right to play for a winning team.”

“Coach Webb is in good standing,” Warr reaffirmed. “I am not looking for another coach. I have no plans to replace him.”

Webb, a longtime Fayetteville resident, coached winning teams at Riverdale and Jonesboro before taking over at Fayette County two years ago. The Tigers finished 1-9 both years, which disappointed everyone associated with the school, Warr said.

Jones said she collected more than 100 signatures on a petition urging that Webb be fired. But the support shown for the coach since the Nov. 15 board meeting convinced her it was pointless.

“I still have it out there, but I never submitted it to anyone because it appeared everyone was so staunchly in support of Coach Webb,” she said.

Instead, Jones said she is now willing to work with Webb and the school staff to move the program forward.

But she still alleges that classified information about her son’s guardianship and residency somehow made it into the hands of booster club officers, who questioned whether the 15-year-old was ineligible to play for the Tigers, Jones said.

But Warr said the boy’s residency was never seriously in doubt, and he remains in good standing.

Jones explained that she granted temporary custody of her son to her mother shortly after 9/11, when her job with a defense contractor required her to travel out of town frequently. She has since regained custody, and the family lives together in Martha’s Vineyard off New Hope Road.

C.W. Campbell, head of athletics for the county, said Tuesday he had been trying to set up a meeting with Jones and other school officials to deal with some of her concerns, but he refused to say whether Jones’ claim that her son’s file was somehow breached is among them.

Campbell said the planned meeting was standard procedure for dealing with any parent complaints.

Meanwhile, Warr expressed frustration that the ordeal over the football program has overshadowed many of the school’s positive accomplishments in the past two years.

“Coach Webb is a fine person and at this point we’re moving forward with the program, and that’s it,” said Warr. “We’re always looking to improve from year to year in all our programs.”