Former Pirates Assistant Tagged to Lead Program
Garrett Grady was named the Brunswick head football coach earlier this year after serving 12 years of his life as an assistant coach with different teams. When you consider that 34-year-old Grady served as an assistant coach for over a third of his life, including three of those years in an unpaid graduate assistant position, you can definitely say he earned it.
Southeast Georgia has been where Grady grew up playing football, beginning as a youth growing up in Blackshear. He continued playing during his high school years where he played both defensive and offensive lineman for the Pierce County Bears from 2002 through 2005, shuffling between guard and tackle on the O-line and defensive tackle on the D-line.
Following his graduation from the Bears, Grady played at Valdosta State University, where he played offensive line on the 2007 national championship team. While he was at VSU, he decided to try to start coaching. He became a graduate assistant for three years: two years working with his familiar OL positions, and then when he was promoted to RB Coach in 2012. He was fortunate enough to win his second national championship ring with the Blazers, this time as a coach.
Convinced that coaching was something he wanted to stick with, he accepted an offer to go to Western Kentucky, where he would begin as a graduate assistant but would have the opportunity to work with a Division 1 school and with a couple of big name coaches.
Bobby Petrino was the Hill Toppers head coach, and Neil Calloway, one of the most respected line coaches in all of football, would be who Grady would work under and continue to learn with. However, on the drive up to the blue grass state, Garrett received a call from Calloway, and the news wasn’t what Garrett was hoping to hear.
“Coach Calloway told me that Petrino had already found someone else,” said Grady. “I was above Atlanta, so I just turned around and came back to Blackshear.”
Not knowing what his next move was going to be, Grady received a call from an administrator at Pierce County High, Principal Dara Bennett (who is now the Pierce County school district Superintendent). Pierce County High was one of the places Grady had applied upon leaving Valdosta State.
“I went in and interviewed, and she took me to meet Coach Pender” he said.
Grady had known of Sean Pender, from when Grady played at Pierce and Pender was the head coach at Brantley
“He had an opening for a RB coaching position, and that’s what I had coached during my last year at VSU, so it worked out perfectly,” said Grady.
So, in 2013, Grady joined the staff at Pierce County, which started a four-year career as an assistant with the Bears.
“The first two years as RB coach, then the last two as OL coach as well as the offensive coordinator,” said Grady.
In 2017, Garrett Grady followed Pender’s move to Brunswick, where Pender was hired as the Pirates head coach, and Grady took over as Brunswick’s OL coach/offensive coordinator. Grady would continue to serve as the loyal assistant, a role he had become quite accustomed to.
He was promoted to assistant head coach in 2019, which prepared him for his next role. That would come in 2021, when Pender stepped down to take the head coaching position at North Hall High School. Grady was then promoted to the position of head football coach of the Brunswick Pirates.
“I thought I had a pretty good chance of getting the job,” said Grady. “I had been the assistant head coach here for the last three years, and I had developed a great relationship with the administration here, our athletic director, the teachers, and the kids. We had a great season here last season, and I just want to keep that going.”
Grady will inherit a program that finished 11-1 overall last season, including a region championship with a perfect 6-0 record. They have advanced to the second round of the state playoffs the last two years. Grady says he is excited about the talent he will have to work with this season.
“We have 28 rising seniors, and the majority of them were starters or at least major contributors as juniors last year,” Grady said.
What type of scheme will Grady employ on both offense and defense, now that he’s the guy calling the shots?
“We won’t change a lot from how we’ve been doing things,” said Grady. “This offense is all about getting our playmakers the ball and putting them in space so they can do their thing.”
That will start with 6-foot-4 junior, lefty QB Jarrod Elkins. Defensively, the Pirates will continue to line up in the 3-4, with all three down linemen returning this season in junior River Creel, along with seniors Kashawn Thomas and Jordan Jimmmerson.
Grady says the future is bright with “a lot of really good younger guys coming up.”
The Garrett Grady era at Brunswick kicks off on August 19 at home against Andrew Jackson High School from Jacksonville, Florida.
