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Shawn SharpValdosta High SchoolValdosta, Georgia by Robert Preston Jr. photography by Micki K Photography |
Sharp Makes a Splash at Valdosta High | |
| It’s a long way from Las Vegas to the football-crazed community of Valdosta, Georgia. Yet that was the path for Shawn Sharp, a former high school and college quarterback, football coach and – for the 2010-2011 school year – head swim coach. A graduate of Cheyenne High School in Las Vegas, his football team advanced to the semifinals of the state playoffs his senior year. Sharp’s performance for Cheyenne, where he also played basketball and baseball, earned him an appearance in the Las Vegas All-Star game that year and an opportunity to play football at Antelope Valley Community College in Lancaster, California. From Antelope Valley, Sharp went to Southern Oregon University, where he finished his playing career. While he was completing his education, his parents moved to Virginia, where Sharp’s father coached a high school baseball team. Sharp, who had always wanted to coach once his playing days were over, moved to Newport News, Virginia, where he became an assistant baseball coach under his father and finished his education at Christopher Newport University. When Sharp was growing up, his mother made sure he stayed active. He took swim lessons from the Red Cross as a youngster and then did a little competitive swimming at the local level. Sharp also played tennis, although his main sports remained football, basketball and baseball. When he moved to Newport News to coach with his father, he became reacquainted with the water. He earned his lifeguard certification, taught swim lessons and coached a local swim team. He didn’t realize it at the time, but that brief period in Virginia would lay a solid foundation for his future endeavors. First and foremost, he saw a different side of his father when the two coached together. His father’s approach to coaching would influence Sharp’s own coaching philosophy over the next few years. “My dad was concerned about the all-around well-being of the athlete,” Sharp says. “That was a big lesson for me. He nurtured his kids spiritually, emotionally and mentally. You can take an average kid who is strong spiritually, emotionally and mentally and make him into a great athlete.” In 2005, Sharp moved to Valdosta. His wife’s family lived in Florida, and his father had taken a job at Moody Air Force Base. Sharp wanted to be closer to his family and moving to Valdosta would accomplish that on both fronts. He planned to get a job and then earn a teaching certificate. He was working at Turner’s Furniture and taking classes at Valdosta State University when he learned that a special education position was available in the Valdosta city school district. Sharp wanted to teach special education, so he looked into the job. Through the Teach for Georgia program, he was eligible to teach under a provisional certificate while he finished his education. |
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In addition to teaching, he became an assistant coach on the Wildcats freshman football team under former head coach Rick Tomberlin. After Tomberlin’s contract was not renewed following the 2009 season, Sharp found his coaching future uncertain. When Rance Gillespie, Tomberlin’s successor, came on board, Sharp moved from the freshman squad to coaching at J.L. Newbern Middle School. He was fine with the transfer – he simply wanted to coach football.
During the first semester of the 2010-2011 school year, another coaching opportunity materialized. The Valdosta-Lowndes County community is an athletic hub for southern Georgia, but one sport has been curiously absent from the high school programs for many years: swimming. The YMCA has a vibrant swimming program. Lowndes High added swimming last year, leaving Valdosta a little behind the eight-ball where aquatic sports are concerned. In the middle of the football season, discussions began regarding a Wildcats swim team. With Sharp’s previous experience as a swim coach, he was called upon to help start the program. By the time everything fell into place, Sharp and his swimmers had only two weeks to prepare for their first meet. The inaugural Wildcats swim team has 32 swimmers, with only 15 having a background in competitive swimming. Sharp has had to teach many of his athletes the sport from the ground up – the different strokes, how to execute each stroke, how meets are organized, etc. “Of the kids on the team who have a background swimming, they have at most two years. Our team is very young,” he says. The 2011 water Wildcats have an abundance of ninth- and tenth-graders, which bodes well for the future of the program. This year, though, could be a little rocky. At their first meet, just two weeks after the Wildcats hit the pool, the girls finished seventh and the boys eighth out of 11 teams. That’s a good starting point but not nearly where the program could be. As Sharp looks down the road, he realizes just how difficult it’s going to be to build a strong swimming program at Valdosta. Sharp believes a program that will be competitive at the state level is at least five, and maybe as many as 10, years away. “To have a program competitive in the state, Lowndes has to have a good team. And that goes back to the YMCA program. Kids need to be in the pool by the time they are in the sixth grade so they can get that foundation. Right now, we have two or three kids who are almost state qualifiers. But that’s out of 30 swimmers. I want our team to be competitive at the state level,” he says. Sharp has dedicated himself to building a quality swim team at Valdosta High School, although his ultimate goals are to become a head football coach and athletic director. For now, he is content where he is, doing what he’s doing. “I love Valdosta. This is a great area. I have a vested interest in a lot of things in Valdosta – special education, football and swimming. Football is my main sport but I feel like God has put me here for swimming. I will be here as long as God wants me to be here. If I’m somewhere He doesn’t want me, we’re all going to be miserable,” he says. Sharp and his wife, Summer, have two daughters and one son, six-year-old Lucy, four-year-old Ellery and two-year-old Nathan. Like most coaches, he doesn’t get much free time. In addition to coaching, he’s also finishing his master’s degree. “Those two to three hours of free time I have each day go to my family,” he says. • Worth NotingCoaching football and swimming are only two of the sports Shawn Sharp has undertaken while at Valdosta High. For the last two years, he has coached track. This year, he will be the head tennis coach. “I’ve always felt like if you can coach one sport at the high school level, you coach just about any of them. If you’re willing to learn a little bit and realize that you don’t know everything, you can do it. I enjoy coaching. I enjoy the kids and seeing them improve. It makes me feel young again,” he says. | |
January 2012
Robert Preston Jr. 
Micki K Photography 
