Tift County football coach to resign amid “drama and distractions”

TIFTON — Tift County football coach Noel Dean announced in a statement Monday that he will resign his position after the season’s end. The move comes after Tift County fans began a petition drive to remove Dean and after an intense Tift County School Board meeting that saw Tift County Principal Chad Stone and Tift County Superintendent Adam Hathaway placed on administrative leave.

“I hope this announcement can bring an end to the drama and distractions that have enveloped our program in recent weeks, allowing our coaches and players to regain their singular focus on the task at hand for the remainder of the season,” Dean said Monday in a statement.

Last week, in a Tift County School Board meeting, the discussion of the Dean and the football program became heated and Tift County supporters asked for Hathaway and Dean to both be removed with Stone as the new superintendent. Hathaway had selected Dean as the football coach prior to the 2021 football season.

Read about the meeting here.

Blue Devil fans began pushing for Dean’s removal early in the football season when the team lost by big margins during the first three games of the season, but frustration began with Tift County’s 1-9 season a year ago.

Members of the group who started the petition online rejoiced after Dean’s announcement with an online post on the petition site.

“Coach Dean will not seek to renew his contract at the end of the year,” the post read. “Our community is overjoyed by this news. We don’t want to personally attack him, but he was just never able to connect with our student body or our community. We are just excited to declare this victory.

Dean is a member of the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He won Michigan state titles in 2002, 2004, and 2009 at Lowell High. His first team at Tift County saw marked improvement with a 6-5 record and a playoff appearance but the Blue Devils are just 2-13 since.