Live Oak — corey.davis@gaflnews.com



LIVE OAK-Another school year has begun and one school is taking the phrase “a new beginning” to another level.  

Before leaving her post as principal at Suwannee High, Dawn Lamb hired Willie Spears as the new football coach. Newly hired Athletic Director Hunter Abercrombie has been on the job for two months now, joining newly hired principal Ted Roush, and in that short period, Abercrombie has had to replace several coaches as well.

Abercrombie accepted the job over the summer after working at First Federal for the three previous years.  

"I've been wanting to get back into coaching for about a year and half," Abercrombie said. "I mentioned being interested in the job to some people, this is a dream come true for me."      

Abercrombie, 26, played baseball at Suwannee from 1999-2002 and attended Tallahassee Community College for two years as well as Mercer University.

The job came open after former football coach Jerry Odom resigned from the position before he left and assistant coach Pete Irby took over and resigned as well.

"I may be young and inexperienced but you won't find no one more passionate about Suwannee High sports than me,” Abercrombie said. “The stars aligned, I guess you could say."

The AD position requires wearing many hats and is considerably more complex than people perceive.

"We handle everything within the athletic program," Abercrombie said. "From handling eligibility, to fundraising, marketing the program, stuff with the FHSAA, scheduling buses and hiring officials for the games."

"I will be selling football season tickets, doing some fundraising and hiring some coaches like swimming, baseball, cross country, boys tennis and boys soccer," he said.

Abercrombie was busy over the summer replacing several coaching jobs as well, including the boys soccer coach Archie Cook (who guided his team to a district championship) who was promoted at Publix and moved to Panama City.

“We’ve hired BJ Shirah as the new boys soccer coach, Paul Buchanan as the girls cross-country coach, Doug Morgan as the new swimming coach and Lonnie Ford as the boys tennis coach,” he said.

Abercrombie was still looking for a girls bowling, girls golf and boys basketball coaches.

His biggest hire was bringing former Suwannee baseball coach Ronnie Gray back to the program.

Four years ago, Ronnie Gray stepped away from coaching Suwannee High baseball to spend more time with his family.

Truth is Gray could never walk away from baseball, having still been coaching locally for travel teams and assisting with the middle school program.

So when Shannon Jernigan stepped away from coaching Suwannee at the end of the season, Abercrombie didn’t have to look far for a replacement.

Abercrombie, who played for Gray, contacted him about the coaching vacancy and Gray  expressed interests in the job.

“I played for him, in those 9-10 years he excelled here, we were one of the premier programs,” Abercrombie said. “I talked to him 2-3 weeks after I got the job and we started talking about the job and came to an agreement.”  

Abercrombie offered Gray, the winningest coach in Suwannee baseball history, the job, and after working out some minor details, Gray accepted the offer a month later.

“We want to put our winning program back in place, last year was an outstanding year but we don’t want to have one good year and then wait three years to have another good year,” Gray said.

Under Gray, Suwannee compiled a 187-73 record, including seven consecutive 20-plus win seasons and four state playoff appearances in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005, including a regional final appearance in 2001. Gray also helped send 24 kids to college and had 28 players named to the All-State team.   

“In five years I hope we’re back in the conversation (top programs in the state), we have a lot of work to do and it will be quite challenging,” Gray said.   

Abercrombie summed it up all best about all the changes at the school.

“I think it’s a positive thing with a lot of new ideas and by bringing some people back its a nice mix of old and new,” Abercrombie said, “Honestly it’s a great thing, shows how committed we are to get better in athletics.”