Auburn's Winegarden Named Next TCHS Football Coach

NORTHPORT, AL — A new, but notable, face will be on the sidelines for the Tuscaloosa County Wildcats football team this fall following the announcement that Auburn High School coach Adam Winegarden's hire had been approved by the Tuscaloosa County Board of Education Monday.

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Winegarden, 43, saw success as the head coach at Hillcrest High School from 2010-2011 and leaves Auburn after posting a 56-19 record since 2015, winning 12 games during the 2020 campaign and leading his team to an unforgettable 7A state title game. In 13 seasons as a head coach at the high school level, Winegarden has posted a 119-37 career record as he heads to Northport.

While Winegarden was not immediately available for comment following Monday's vote, TCHS Principal Darrell Williams — who served on Winegarden's coaching staff at Hillcrest a decade ago — said the hire checked all the boxes.

"When we started the process, we wanted to find a man that had great integrity and character and somebody who could develop the entire player and Coach Winegarden fits every characteristic we wanted to lead this program and his pedigree speaks for itself," Williams told Patch. "Our goal as educators is to equip these guys with the tools to be great employees, fathers and citizens. I don’t think there is a guy in this profession better than Coach Winegarden."

Winegarden will take over a beleaguered Wildcats football program that won only five games in two years under Jay Todd. The fanbase has been vocal in its desire for the school to become a bonafide competitor in the powerful AHSAA Class 7A, harkening back to the days when TCHS was one of the elite 6A programs in the state before making the move to 7A in 2014.

The Wildcats last posted a winning mark in 2014, going 7-6, before failing to win more than three games in a season over the next six years.

A reinvigorated fanbase, Williams said, is expected to spur a ripple effect that will have a noticeable impact not just for the school, but the entire community.

"When I got hired at County High, that was one of the first things people talked about was getting the fanbase back involved, getting the community involved," he said. "So when we started this search, we wanted to do the same thing. We want to see the Northport community grow and we want to try to build up that excitement that was here years ago."

Investing in future success has also been a recent talking point in the months following the job becoming vacant, with Williams and others in the TCHS community pointing out that coaching salaries factored heavily into the school's success in 7A sports. The state's strongest classification and largest by enrollment per school includes the likes of Hoover High School, which pays coach Josh Niblett $133,000 per year and numerous other schools whose coaches make more than $100,000 a year.

Patch reported in December when Williams requested $50,000 from the Northport City Council, saying if TCHS paid a coach based off of what other coaches in Region 7 make, it comes out to a difference of roughly $60,000.

Williams said on Monday, though, that while the details of Winegarden's salary are still being hammered out, recent efforts helped get the salary total to a competitive level.

"It started off with our county [school] board," he said. "A few sessions back, they passed some better coaching supplements which really helped bring a little bit of that back up. It went full circle for everybody, our superintendent and county board did a great job really doubling the coaching supplements. We’ve had some community members reach out, too."

Winegarden will also bring strong family support, Williams pointed out, which proved another important selling point for going after the Auburn coach.

"He brings with him a great family support system," he said. "His wife Ashley, who I know very well from when I used to coach, she’s always right beside him and helping bring the community together."

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