Jay Williams has been hired as Ooltewah’s head boys’ basketball coach, a program rocked by a rape scandal last December that eventually led Hamilton County School officials to disband the varsity team and cancel more than half its schedule.
Williams, who has strong ties to Ooltewah High School, previously coached at LaFayette School and Northwest Whitfield high schools in Northwest Georgia, but returns to coaching following a 13-year hiatus.
Any reservations about returning to the sideline at age 54 and reviving program trying to get past its recent troubles?
“None at all,” the personable Williams said. “My wife and I attended Ooltewah and our three children went to school there. Ooltewah is a great place to be and I’d like to think I’ve got something to give back to the school.”
Williams, and his new assistant coach, Theanthony Haymon, met briefly with some returning Owls players prior to an afternoon press conference in the school’s gymnasium.
“I enjoyed the meeting and they’re ready to get to work,” Williams said. “Theanthony and I are ready, too. We hope to get in some work in our gym before school starts. The players have been in the gym on their own this summer.”
Williams attended Tennessee-Chattanooga and spent 32 years teaching and coaching in Northwest Georgia. He spent eight years at LaFayette and three at Northwest Whitfield as the boys’ basketball coach.
As an administrator, Williams was an assistant principal and athletic director at Northwest Whitfield. He was also the principal at Northwest Whitfield and assistant principal at Northwest Georgia College and Career Academy in Whitfield County for the past four years.
“When I got out of coaching,” Williams said, “I felt like coaching had reached the point it was for a young man who didn’t have kids, or was an empty-nester. I missed so much of our kids’ playing sports, but our youngest (Summer) has graduated and Kelly (his wife) and I are heading toward becoming empty-nesters.
“Basketball has changed over the years, but the fundamentals of the game and the idea of running a good program haven’t changed.”
All of Williams’ children – Trey, Drew and Summer – were student-athletes while at Ooltewah.
Haymon is originally from Louisiana and played professional basketball abroad. He is also a former administrator and athletic director. He has lived in Chattanooga for a while and been active with youth basketball programs.
The two coaches are hopeful of helping return Owls basketball to the prominence it enjoyed before being derailed when three varsity players were charged with raping a freshman teammate with a pool cue while the team competed in a pre-Christmas tournament in Gatlinburg.
Following the team’s participation in a tournament at Chattanooga State a week later and with the Gatlinburg incident well on its way to gaining nationwide notoriety, Ooltewah was forced to shelve the 2016-17 season after playing 15 games and winning just three.
As the outrage reached a boiling point, then-coach Andre (Tank) Montgomery, volunteer assistant Karl Williams, assistant principal and athletic director Jesse Nayadley came under increasing heat for failing to report suspected sexual child abuse to the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, and all were later suspended by Rick Smith, the Hamilton County Schools superintendent.
Nayadley, while denying any wrongdoing, accepted a pre-trial diversion and resigned from the school district.
Charges were dropped against Karl Williams since, as a volunteer coach, he had not received training that would have covered reporting a stunning event such as the one that occurred in Gatlinburg.
Montgomery still faces charges.
Principal Jim Jarvis couldn’t escape the fallout either and was reassigned as an assistant principal at East Hamilton in May. He has since taken a leave of absence.
After two months of tumult and his perceived mishandling of the situation, Smith was forced out in a “separation agreement” and denied a request to be given a $269,000 buyout.
Put all those things together and collectively one understand what Williams and Haymon face in arguably the most difficult challenge any Tennessee high school coach will tackle this coming season.
But Williams knows the real Ooltewah High School and relishes the task at hand of taking the job.
“I’ve always missed coaching when I was pursuing the administrative end of education,” Jay Williams said. “Our kids played a lot of sports at Ooltewah and they were also outstanding students. If I didn’t think Ooltewah is a great school, my three kids wouldn’t have gone there. When they left high school they were well-prepared for college.”
(Reach Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)