Former Alabama football player Nick Gentry, a member of Nick Saban’s first recruiting class at Alabama, is officially the new head football coach at Pell City.

Gentry, the Panthers’ defensive coordinator in 2023, was elevated to the interim position when Rush Propst resigned earlier this spring. This week, the Pell City Board of Education voted 5-0 to remove the interim title.

“He’s earned the position,” Pell City athletic director Marty Smith said. “That’s just the bottom line. Through the trials and tribulations, he’s been the person who has kept everything in line. The kids are working hard. The assistant coaches are working hard. I went over there on my first day as athletic director on June 3. The workouts were organized and crisp. The kids were bouncing around. They were having fun but working their rear-ends off. I went back the next day. Same thing. Nick has earned this.”

The Panthers clearly need some stability. Gentry is the school’s seventh head coach since 2012. Propst’s one-year tenure ended in division. In April, he survived an attempt to non-renew him as the team’s head coach only to resign the next week.

“This feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and the shoulders of my family,” Gentry told AL.com Thursday. “More than anything, these kids are relieved because it’s been so fragile around here. Now they know there is stability ahead, and we can take off and get to where we need to go and where we think we can go.”

Smith announced to the team Thursday morning that Gentry was no longer the interim coach.

“They were excited,” Smith said. “What was neat was they celebrated for a minute then, when I walked out, they went back to work. What more can you ask for? That took place at 6 a.m. after they had been in Tuscaloosa all day Wednesday doing a 7-on-7. I’m proud of the staff that has stuck in there and proud of Nick and how he’s handled the situation.”

Gentry played for Bill Clark at Prattville High, helping the Lions go 15-0 and win the 2006 Class 6A state title. At Alabama, he earned four letters and helped Saban and company win the BCS National Championship in 2009 and 2011.

“I’ve learned from some of the best in the business,” he said. “I wanted to change lives, and this is the way to do it. I thought it would be in the NFL. That didn’t work out, so now I’m happy to do it as a high school coach.”

Gentry said Saban helped him learn how to persevere through adversity.

“I’ve had some trials in life that have punched me in the face,” he said. “But coach Saban’s system and the way he ran it, he pushed us to get through tough challenges. He set us up with realistic situations that prepared me to get through the tough moments. Everyone runs into challenges, but only certain people know how to handle it. He got me ready for those moments.”

Gentry’s coaching career has taken him to Jacksonville State, UAB and the USFL before joining Propst at Pell City.

“There has been so much happening here in the past few months, things that were distracting,” he said. “I think that has been eliminated. I can tell the attitude has changed. The vision has changed. I’ve made a few tweaks here and there that are basically mine, and the guys are adapting to that. The energy level is there. We are all headed in the same direction.”

Gentry will try to return Pell City to the playoffs for the first time since 2017. He said he definitely sees a difference in the current team and the squad he joined a year ago that finished 1-9 for the second straight season.

“It’s on the right path,” he said. “The groundwork has been laid. I don’t judge everything on 7-on-7 of course, but we can see against those other teams that we are much more developed in size and ability than in the past. We are so much further ahead than we were last year. I think we will have a chance to compete right away. Last year, we fired all our bullets and gave it all we had, but the knowledge of the game just wasn’t there. Now, I feel comfortable calling any play and creating matchups to win games.”

Pell City is set to open the 2024 season against Pelham on Aug. 23.