Our “4 Questions with the Coach” guest this week is Columbus High Blue Devils head football coach Phillip Marino. He is in his 14th season at Columbus and oversaw his team’s move to Class 3A in the past offseason. He talks about his coaching career and his plans to keep moving the Columbus High program in the right direction.
Q: Coach Marino, thanks so much for joining us this week. Can you tell us about the career path that brought you to the Blue Devils and how long you’ve been head football coach at Columbus High?
A: I had been at East Columbus Magnet Academy, a middle school in Columbus. I was approached by Dr. Crumbs, who was the assistant principal and athletic director at CHS. At that time, I had known Dr. Crumbs for 15 years. He had been my son’s teacher in middle school. He asked me if I would be interested in being the head coach at CHS. I had actually interviewed for the job the year prior, but was not ready to make the move to high school. The following year the job came open again. I had a great interview with the principal, met the players, and 14 years later, I’m still a Blue Devil.
Q: You’ve enjoyed a long tenure here as head coach despite a few rocky seasons. That is a good sign when an administration stays the course with one coach instead of changing it every two or three years. Is this part of an overall strategy to provide stability to the Columbus High football program with a long-term plan?
A: To be honest, I told myself and the administration if I couldn’t turn the program around in five years, I would move on. I think I won five games my first five years. Coming into my fourth season, we felt we finally got a good freshman class to come into the program. So I thought I would stay to see that class through the next four seasons, and the administration was behind that plan and the program. The other thing that has kept the stability in our program is my coaching staff. One has been with me for 14 years, two others for 13 years, and two more for seven years.
Q: Columbus has enjoyed a few bright spots during your tenure, including strong seasons in 2015 and 2018. Can you give us an overall assessment of the struggle to put together consistent winning seasons by the Columbus High football team?
A: We did make the playoffs for the first time in 34 years. In my 14 years at CHS, those two seasons had very talented freshman classes that stayed in the program all four years, showing total commitment. We do not normally get those classes or players who stay in the program. Incoming 9th graders from the 13 middle schools in our school district have eight high schools to choose from. Each district high school has some kind of magnet to choose from, not counting the three private schools. Recruiting is definitely an issue in our city.
Most importantly, in order to get into CHS, each student must take an entrance exam and score high enough to get into our Liberal Arts Magnet, which is very competitive. Bottom line, we get some good football players, we just never get enough of them. I can’t imagine the state championships our school district would have if we just had four high schools. Our talent is spread out over 11 high schools. One or two schools always have winning records, and they have the majority of the talent each year in order to have those winning records. The schools that don’t have those winning records isn’t due to the lack of good coaching, but the lack of the number of players and talent. All these things will continue to be the struggles to put together consistent winning seasons at Columbus.
Q: What’s the current status of the program? Do you think your blue Devils are poised to break through with a few winning seasons? And what do you think it will take to make Columbus high football a consistent winner?
A: Our program got moved to 3A this year. We are playing in a region that has Carver (state runner-up in 2021), Thomasville (state runner-up in 2021), Dougherty (third-round loss to Carver in 2021), Crisp County (third-round loss in 2021) and Monroe, who is having a good season. Each one of those mentioned schools dress 40-45 more players than we do each week we play.
Each year we are lucky to have 55 players in our program in grades 9-12. Depth is always a huge problem, so we lack competition at practice. The only way we’ll ever be able to get back to the playoffs is to each year get a good freshman class of 25 kids who are football players and not just kids who want to give football a try. I realize there are kids we’ll have to develop, but my staff and I spend more time teaching kids how to play than actually coaching, and there is a big difference between the two.
