Pinson Valley High School has called a former assistant home to be the next head football coach, hiring Woodlawn head coach Gentrell Eatman to replace Lee Guess.

The Jefferson County Board of Education approved Eatman’s hiring at its meeting on Thursday evening.

Guess resigned after a 6-4 season, saying he found it too difficult to balance his responsibilities to the program and those to his family. Guess had replaced Sam Shade, who led the program to a state championship in the first of his two years as head coach.

Eatman worked as an assistant to the coach who preceded Shade, Patrick Nix, who led the Indians to the school’s first two state titles in 2017 and 2018. Eatman was hired as Woodlawn’s head coach after the 2019 season – Nix’ final year at Pinson before he left for Central-Phenix City.

“Pinson felt like home to me,” Eatman said. “It’s a good, blue-collar, working community, there’s a close-knit faculty and staff and great leadership with Mr. (principal Michael) Turner. It just felt like home.

“Kids at Pinson just work hard. When I first got there, at the middle school, I saw kids compete just doing physical fitness tests and that transferred to the practice field. Good, solid kids with a work ethic is half the battle.”

Eatman is a native of Eutaw and a former UAB strong safety for head coach Watson Brown. He is 15-43 in six years as a head coach – 8-20 in three years at his alma mater Greene County and 7-23 in three years at Woodlawn.

“I came in at Woodlawn during the COVID time (in 2020),” he said. “I didn’t have a chance to see any kids in school. I only had word of mouth about them. During that time, a lot of kids went and stayed in another place and did their work online; they were not in the building.

“It was tough. Leaving Pinson, where we were undefeated my first season (2017) and we only lost one the next year and three the next, it was difficult going 0-10, but I knew we had to put in the work and prove myself and my ability to build a program.”

Eatman was 1-9 in his second season at Woodlawn, but the Colonels finished 6-4 in 2022 – their first winning season in 11 years.

“He’s a man of the shield and the cross,” the Pinson Valley principal said. “What you see is what yo get. I think he’s well deserving of an opportunity.

“He has worked exceptionally hard to grow young men. You that and the wins will come,” Turner said.

The 42-year-old Eatman is accustomed to the life of a coach, he said. His mother, Dr. Shirley Eatman, was the Aliceville High women’s basketball coach and his father, Gene Eatman, coaches basketball and baseball at A.L. Johnson in Thomaston. Tim Eatman, Gentrell’s brother, is women’s head basketball coach at South Carolina State. Tim coached for seven years as an assistant to Vivian Stringer at Rutgers where in 2018-19 he served as acting head coach for the final six games of the year and in 2019-20 he was promoted to associate head coach.

“I grew up in a house full of coaches,” the new Pinson Valley coach said. “Wherever I’ve been, my other brother, Cedric, has been with me.

“I’m soon to be married and I have a son and a daughter and my fiancée has a daughter. They know my role. It’s not my first or second time as a head coach. My first time as a head coach, I put a whole lot of time into it, but as I’ve gotten older, I have understood to make time for my family. I had to learn that, though.”

Eatman said he plans to bring discipline and excitement to his new team.

“My whole thing to bring to Pinson is being able to play at a high-tempo level, to play with less thinking and more reacting,” he said. “I want to play with a lot of enthusiasm and that starts with hard work. That’s one thing they will get from me – hard work. With hard work, everything else will come.

“I want to make sure the kids are fundamentally sound. Before you can get that (AHSAA championship) blue map, you have to start with fundamentals and sell out for each other on that field.

“We’re going to be disciplined,” Eatman said, “and we’re going to play tough. Practice is going to be like a game situation. We’re going to go after every practice like it’s a game and you have to be willing to work. Playing football under my leadership is like being in a classroom where you have to study. You have to bring that hard hat every day. Nothing is going to be given.

“The standard has already been set. You can’t do what past teams have done. Every team has to write its own history in that book.”