For the first time since 1967, a Dean likely won’t be the head coach of Madison County football when fall rolls around.
Madison County football coach Stuart Dean stepped down after 12 years at the helm for the Mountaineers, following 12 years as an assistant under his father Eddie Dean.
“Getting that first win, I’ll always remember calling him to tell him about it,” Stuart Dean said. “It was great to be able to try and do what he did in the same place.”
Madison went 6-6 in Stuart Dean’s final season, ending a slide of five straight losing seasons since the Mountaineers went 8-3 in 2010. Madison exited in the second round of the playoffs after beating Nandua for the team’s first playoff win since 2001.
“This is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while and it just seemed like now was the right time to do it,” Dean said.
The 2008 to 2010 stretch was Madison’s most fruitful under Dean, going 25-7 over that stretch.
“What I’ll remember most were all the relationships,” Dean said. “Relationships with all the players, relationships with all the people that came out and helped the program. It was a good climate, a good place for people’s kids.”
The Mountaineers went 9-2 in 2009, falling 10-0 in the playoffs to eventual Group A Division 1 champions Altavista. In 2010, the two programs met again in the playoffs with the Colonels edging the Mountaineers, 30-22.
Over the last eight years, Dean’s offenses have put up some impressive numbers and individual performances including the careers of All-Scrimmage Play honorees like Logan Terrell, Travis Warren, James Graves, Ashton Weakley and most recently Isiah Smith, who crossed the 2,000-yard mark in 2016 in combined receiving and passing yards while scoring 20 touchdowns.
And for whoever winds up his replacement, Dean has a helpful pointer.
“It’s about x’s and o’s of course too, but at the end of the day (this job) comes down to getting the right relationships with players, coaches, everybody. That’s the most important part.”
