Ricky Woods didn’t plan on being a head coach again, but he couldn’t turn down an old friend.

Woods, a 300-game winner and member of the Mississippi Coaches Hall of Fame, has been named the interim head football coach at Demopolis High School.

He takes over for Lance Tucker, who stepped down from the role in June. Demopolis superintendent Adam Pugh called Woods when he realized the timing of hiring a coach in the middle of the summer was problematic.

“Mr. (Frederick) Franklin (principal) and I started interviewing for a full-time person but, as we got into it, I felt we just needed to pump the breaks a bit,” Pugh said. “We had several folks who wanted to talk to us but wouldn’t because of the timing with their current jobs. We decided, for this year, we needed to just go with an interim and then open it again in November or December when the timing was better.”

Pugh had a good idea of just who to call. Woods hired him 35 years ago as an assistant at Eupora, Miss.

“I gave Adam his first job,” Woods said. “He’s a real good person and administrator. I knew the situation was a little late for him and most coaches were under contract. I never planned to be a head coach again. But he told me the situation and wanted someone to come in until Christmas and work hard and try to fill a void until his applicant pool is a little broader. We are excited about it. I’m going to come in and work as hard as I can and enjoy the kids. It will be a refreshing change.”

It would be hard to find a more qualified interim coach.

In 28 years as a high school head coach, he went 300-71 with 8 state titles and 3 state runner-up finishes. He was head coach at six high schools in Mississippi, including powerhouse South Panola twice. In 2004, he was named the EA Sports national high school coach of the year after leading South Panola to a 15-0 record and the second of four straight state titles. Woods also was named the Jackson Clarion-Ledger’s Coach of the Decade in Mississippi for 2000-2010.

“If anyone has won a lot of games, they’ve had a lot of great players and I’ve had a lot of great players who were coachable,” he said. “It’s never about you, it’s about who you surround yourself with, and I’ve had great players and great coaches.”

Woods retired from South Panola in 2021 to spend time with his ailing mother. He spent the last two years helping another of his former assistants, Michael Fair, at Grenada, Miss., High. The Chargers won the Class 6A state title last fall.

Woods met the Demopolis team and parents Sunday and will officially start his interim job next Monday. He did re-iterate that it was an interim job. “I have grandchildren now,” he said. “I talked to them before I took the job, but I like to see them do things. It’s definitely interim.”

Woods takes over a Demopolis team that went 17-7 in two years under Tucker, including 7-4 in 2024. The Tigers are scheduled to open at Class 6A power Mountain Brook on Aug. 22.

“The first thing I have to do is come in and learn their names,” Woods joked. “They’ve got a good program already. We will keep doing a lot of things they have been doing. I’ll put in my system. We will be a little behind, but we will start out simple and build on some of the things coach Tucker did. We will adjust the personnel as needed. A lot of the assistants are still there. We will lean on them.”

Woods said he also will bring longtime Mississippi coach Ron Oakes with him to coach the offensive line.

“I told the kids yesterday that there is not but one way to do this and that is wide open,” he said. “That’s the only way I know how to do it, and that’s what we will do.”

Woods and wife Susan have been married 46 years. He said she has never missed one of his more than 500 games. They have two sons and three grandchildren.