Former Hutto Middle School Tiger and Bainbridge High School Bearcat receiver and defensive back Harold Smith has joined the seventh grade football coaching staff at Bainbridge Middle School.

For the past nine years, coach Smith has coached on the Bearcats track coaching staff of Larry Clark and Larry Cosby. He coached the 4-by-100-meter and 4-by-400-meter relay teams.

He was on the coaching staff of coach Cosby’s 2010 State Class AAAAA champion Bearcats track team.
Coach Smith also ran for coach Dale Mock’s Bearcats cross-country team. He earned his bachelors degree in health and physical education from Florida A&M University.

“I am looking forward to getting involved in football coaching,” Smith said. “I appreciate middle school football coaches Heith Maxwell, Blake Carruthers, Ell Willis Chip Ariail and Patrick Clark for giving me the chance. I understand that we will have a lot of young players out for our middle school programs. We will be giving out equipment after school Monday and getting started.”

The middle school teams will again be playing in the Southwest Georgia seventh and eighth grade football league this season.
Coach Maxwell, who heads the eighth grade program, and coach Carruthers, who heads the seventh grade program, agree that Smith will be an asset to the middle school footballprograms.

“Coach Smith and all of our middle school football coaches are strongly committed to the players,” Maxwell said. “We encourage them to work on the field and in the classroom.”
Carruthers added, “Strong work habits can make young men winners on and off the field.”

The eighth grade Bearcats will open their season Thursday, Aug. 27, against Thomasville’s Macintyre Park Middle School eighth grade Bulldogs at Centennial Field and the seventh grade Bearcats will open their season Wednesday, Sept. 2, against the Thomas County Central Middle School seventh grade Yellow Jackets at Centrals’ Jackets Nest Stadium. Kickoff times for both games will be 5 p.m.