After being forced out at Colquitt County after serving 10 years as the Packers head football coach, Rush Propst will return to the sidelines this fall. Propst has been named head football coach for USA Academy, an upstart private school located in Coosada, Alabama, that plans to field a football team in 2020.
Propst was introduced at a recent press conference held at the Marriott Legends Hotel and Conference Center in Prattville, Alabama. Introducing Propst to the media was USA Academy Founder Dusty DeVaughn, who has big plans to promote USA Academy, as well as Propst.
Those plans include a reality TV series similar to the one that Propst was involved in when he was head coach at Hoover High School in Alabama. During his time with the Bucanneers, Propst and members of his team were the subjects of the MTV series “Two- a- Days,” which followed and documented the on- and off-the-field experiences of the coach and his players over the 2006 and 2007 seasons.
According to the USA Academy website, “USA Academy plans to fully capitalize on the Propst hire by documenting Propst’s journey as he builds the football program from the ground up.”
The rights to the series will be distributed to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu. Exclusive content will also be provided on the USA Academy website.
While the TV cameras and subsequent reality series will tell the story of USA Academy’s beginnings, it’s the successful past of its new head coach that will perhaps be its greatest selling point. Propst boasts seven state championships between his time at Hoover and Colquitt County. That includes more than 300 total wins, 119 of those victories at Colquitt County. He led the Packers to the state playoffs in all but one of his seasons as head coach, with the lone exception being the first season he took over in Moultrie.
“The objective was to hire the best coaching staff in the country that would put our programs competing on a national stage right out of the gate, and, as you can see, it has all come together fast,” DeVaughan said.
USA (which stands for Ultimate Student Athlete) Academy is the latest in what is a fast growing trend of private schools that offer boarding and training to student athletes with collegiate potential. These schools offer mostly online curriculum; however, USA Academy plans to ultimately offer on-campus courses as well.
IMG Academy is the most well known of these institutions whose goal is to educate, board, and offer the finest training and coaching to high school athletes preparing to play at the collegiate level. Located in Bradenton, Florida, IMG Academy originally began as a training ground for tennis, but has grown into a world class, multi-sport training institution. According to Devaughn, the goal of USA Academy is “to be better than IMG Academy.”
At the moment, USA Academy is nothing more than 115 acres of rolling green pastureland owned by DeVaughan and his family. But, that will change quickly, said DeVaughan, with rather aggressive plans to begin enrolling students immediately and classes to begin later this month (January). The school wants to initially attract 300 students, with an ultimate goal of over 1,000. USA Academy will utilize an online curriculum similar to that used by public virtual schools and will be NCAA approved. While USA Academy’s main focus will certainly be on attracting athletes, the school will accept students not participating in athletics.
The school will bring in temporary facilities while work begins on construction of nine permanent buildings that will house classroom space, as well as the educational, administration, and football offices. That includes a 100-yard indoor practice facility, similar to what Propst had at his previous job at Colquitt County, as well as a state-of-the-art, 19,000-square-foot football facility, which will include locker rooms, big enough for a roster of approximately 50-75 players.
Eventually, USA Academy will plan to build student dormitories, although that is not part of the initial nine-building plan. There are also plans to construct a 5,000 seat football stadium that will host the Eagles’ first season this fall. In addition to football, the school also plans to start baseball, soccer, softball, and golf teams in its first year.
“USA Academy will spare no expense to ensure our student-athletes have the best facilities, equipment, apparel, and training,” DeVaughan said during the press conference to introduce Propst.
While Propst has not coached full time since the 2018 season at Colquitt County, he has been staying busy with the game he loves. He has been involved as a volunteer assistant at The University of Alabama-Birmingham under head coach Bill Clark and has even sat in as a co-host of a podcast centered around University of Tennessee football.
During a radio interview, I had an opportunity to talk with Propst soon after he had accepted the position at USA Academy, and as you would expect, he sounded excited about his new opportunity.
“I’ve really been anxiously awaiting the right opportunity to come along, and there is no doubt in my mind that this is it,” he said. “This is one of, if not the finest high school facilities in the country.”
Propst did confirm that he had received several offers to return to coaching, both at the high school and collegiate levels, including an opportunity to move to a position coach full time on Clark’s staff.
“Coaching high school football is where I ultimately wanted to be,” Propst said.
Propst’s main residence and family have remained in Moultrie since he left the Packer program, and he indicated that they will remain there for now, while making plans to begin work on site at USA Academy.
“I’ll still be around here (in Georgia) probably for a couple of months before heading over to Alabama around March,” Propst said.
Look for Propst to hit the ground running once he arrives at USA Academy. Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to hear as we follow the progress of Propst and USA Academy.
Written by: Phil Jones
