Jason Galt was named the 16th head coach in the history of the Gilmer High School football program March 10.

After settling in two weeks later, Galt sat down with #TeamFYNSports to discuss his background and what he has in mind for the Bobcats.

Galt was born in Athens, Ga., but grew up an “Air Force brat,” as the oldest of three children. His father, a member of the United States Air Force for 24 years, took his children all over the world as part of his assignments. Galt played college football, as a quarterback at San Bernardino Valley College in San Bernardino, Calif. and the University of Georgia in his hometown of Athens. His wife Paige calls Calhoun her hometown and they have two children: Jackson, who is eight and Georgia, who is five.

The Bobcats will be the third head coaching position that Galt will tackle, but Gilmer is his eighth coaching job overall. He logged time with Cedar Shoals High School, Clarke Central High School, Cass High School, Carrollton High School and Liberty High School, before taking his first head coaching job in 2007 at Dutchtown, a (then) upstart 4-A school in Hampton. This will be the 10th year for Galt to be at the helm of a football team, with his overall record currently 46-48.

“I’ve coached running backs, receivers, kickers, quarterbacks. But with that being said, I consider myself a defensive-minded coach, because the philosophy is, ‘You put your best players on defense,'” Galt said. “I applied for the Dutchtown job and luckily got it. We were in a really tough region, but as a coach, it was great. We improved each year and my fourth year, we went 11-2 and lost in the (state) quarterfinals to the (eventual) state champions that year, Chattahoochee. We graduated 30 seniors after that, but still found a way to go 5-5 (the next year).”

After a 6-4 campaign in his final season, Galt moved to North Forsyth, in what he called a “perfect” move for his family and his coaching career. Galt took North Forsyth to the state playoffs in his first year with the Raiders, compiling a 7-4 record in the process. In his final two years, he went 3-17. After parting ways with the North Forsyth football program following the 2015 season, Galt started researching his next move. He felt most comfortable with applying for the Gilmer vacancy.

“There were over 50 jobs open,” Galt explained. “I only applied for a handful and actually turned two jobs down, one which I turned down right before I took this job. The Gilmer job is the one I was waiting for. I wanted it because it’s the only show in town. Gilmer has won in the past. The type of football that I like to run is what I think the community wants. We can win here. (Now that Cartersville is leaving), there’s no dominant teams in our region. So, to me, it was a good fit. I wanted this job the most and God blessed me enough to get it.”

Galt has five simple goals that he abides by for his coaching philosophy, as he explains.

“The first is to win more games than you lose. You always want to have a .500 season or better. You want to always be competitive,” Galt boasted. “The second one used to be, since I was always in a big system: beat in-county opponents. But here, we have one major rivalry. So, the second one is to beat Pickens. The third one is to make the playoffs. The fourth one is to win a region championship and the fifth one is to win a state championship. Those have always been my five goals. If you accomplish three of those five, by baseball standards, that’s a pretty good night.”

During the last seven years, the Bobcats have enjoyed arguably their longest stretch of success. After going 1-9 in his first year as a head coach, Wesley Tankersley went 41-24 and took Gilmer to the playoffs for three straight years, including a second-round appearance in 2013. Tankersley departed for Ridgeland following the 2014 season, with Zach Grage taking over and installing a new spread offense for the 2015 season. The changes failed to resonate on the field, as GHS went 4-6 last year. Following the departure of Grage last month, Galt takes over a program that will see its third head coach in as many years. He looks to revamp the Bobcats with an “old-school” approach on the gridiron.

“Tankersley and Grage were both in their first-ever head coaching roles when they started here,” Galt pointed out. “I’m coming here with experience, so those ‘growing pains’ are kind of gone for me. I have a system of what I want to do and how I want to do things. Philosophically, I believe in power football. We’re going to run two tight ends as our base. We going to run the trap play, the sweep. Basically, we’re going to line up and say, ‘Here we come. Stop us.’ It’s the old-school mentality of ‘three yards and a cloud of dust.’ Or, in our case, ‘three yards and a pound of rubber pellets.’ (laughs).”

He continued, “It’s ‘throw when you want to, not when you have to.’ If we have a good quarterback, I have a system where we can utilize his strengths. But the philosophy is that we want to run the ball, keep their offense off the field and eat the clock up. That’s kind of the opposite of what everyone else is doing nowadays. Football is very trendy. This spread stuff isn’t new. It was happening out west a LONG time ago. It’s just now getting to Georgia and everyone is jumping on board, wanting to run the spread. It’s nothing new. But I believe that the teams that win consistently run the football.”

Galt concluded by forecasting the 2016 GHS Bobcats season.

“We’ve got a big senior class, which is good because there’s experience,” Galt explained. “We’ve got some really strong kids. It’s a matter of if they take to the system. It’s not very complicated. I believe that you have to make it as simple as possible, because they have a lot of things going on in their lives besides football. I like our chances, with a big senior class. I’ve seen in the weight room that our kids are really, really strong. They’re going to be physical. I’m very optimistic and excited.”

The Bobcats will hold their spring practice May 2-13.

#TeamFYNSports, “Always looking to spotlight young athletes in a positive manner,” is sponsored by: