Brian Goodman has worked in the education field for 26 years, and he has loved the different positions he has worked in over that time. Out of the different titles and leadership positions he has held over the years, his favorite position has been coach.
It was his love of the game and desire to help young minds grow that inspired him to go into education to begin with.
“I’ve just always enjoyed being involved in athletics,” declared Goodman. “In order to continue in athletics in the school, you have to teach and coach.”
He knew exactly what he wanted to do in his teaching and coaching career, and he made sure to continue his education to make it happen.
“I got my bachelor's degree from Mississippi College,” expressed Goodman. “I got my master’s in sports administration from Southern Miss, and I got my specialist from Arkansas State in principalship. I had no desire to be a principal and still don’t want to be a principal. I just wanted to one day be a head coach and an athletic director, and I’ve fulfilled those roles.”
Since he started, he has worked at multiple schools in different capacities.
“Early on, I coached softball. I coached junior high basketball. I’ve been an assistant football coach. Really, I’ve only been head coach for baseball, junior high basketball, and softball,” explained Goodman. “I spent 12 years at Lake, and that’s pretty much where I coached all of those sports. I was the athletic director at Lake for six of those years. I left Lake after those 12 years and went to Puckett for two years where I just coached baseball and was the assistant athletic director. When my grandmother passed, I had a chance to come be closer to home. Coach Hampton and I had talked, and that’s when the baseball job came open at Quitman School District in 2014. I coached baseball here at Quitman from 2014 to 2017 and then left and went to Biloxi for a year. I spent that year in Biloxi as the assistant baseball coach and then had the chance to go to Houston for four years. After that, the athletic director here at Quitman opened up again and Dr. Dace reached out to me to see if I would be interested in taking that position, so I’ve been here for the past four years.”
His favorite thing about his job is being able to watch as the kids are successful in their sports.
“My favorite thing about being athletic director is just seeing teams progress throughout the year,” proclaimed Goodman. “They may not be as good in game one as they are at the end of the season, and that’s what you always want to do. You want your teams to continue to improve as you play each game. Quitman has a lot of good coaches in the right spots right now, and I think pretty much all of them have been in the playoffs since I’ve been here every year. They’ll just continue to push the kids to greatness, and I like seeing the progress they make.”
Of course, there are also some challenges that he has had to deal with.
“The hardest thing is getting kids to understand the importance of requirements from MHSAA,” continued Goodman. “They have so many requirements that kids have to do. The kids don’t really understand the importance of it, but it’s very important because it involves insurance and all that. They have to turn everything in to protect themselves. If something happens, then there is some catastrophic insurance that MHSAA covers too, but if you don’t have it all documented then it’s not going to be covered.”
Over the past four years, he has done his best to make improvements for each of the sports teams at the school.
“Some of the improvements we’ve made have been to put a new scoreboard in the upper elementary gym for volleyball,” informed Goodman. “All sports for junior high and high school, except for soccer so far, has received new uniforms over the past four years. In soccer, I was purchasing new uniforms this fall. We put up wall padding in the gym that goes all the way across the walls. We have new goals and backboards at the high school gym. We put new weight racks in the junior high and high school weight rooms. We’ve improved the playing surface of every athletic field we have. We top dressed all the fields twice. The inside of the gym was painted. I’ve always been told to leave things better than you find them, and I hope I’ve done that for Quitman.”
Although he has loved being the athletic director for the past four years, he decided that he really wants to be on the field coaching again. He is grateful that Quitman has allowed him to pursue his coaching career again at a Lauderdale County school this coming school year.
“I thought I was ready to get out of coaching, but over the last four years, I’ve realized that I missed it,” declared Goodman. “I wanted to go out on the field again. I appreciate the board for allowing me to be released from my contract to pursue coaching opportunities again. I’m going to Northeast Lauderdale to teach driver’s education and be the head baseball coach. I graduated from Lauderdale County schools, and now I’m gonna finish my career on the field at a Lauderdale County school. As long as I enjoy what I’m doing, I’m gonna keep going with it.”
