Dougherty

After enduring the hardships of 2020, the Dougherty football team has emerged as a region contender in 2021.

Credit: Joe Whitfield, The Albany Herald

Last year, Dougherty High was on the cover of Sports Illustrated during football season.

If you haven’t read the article, I would recommend you do. It gives a tremendous window into what head coach Johnny Gilbert, his staff, players and administrators were going through to play something of a football season at the epicenter of the pandemic in the state of Georgia in 2020. 

They didn’t get a game on the board until October, a non-region game against Turner County before they played all their region games in Region 1-AAAA. They would finish 0-5. 

The 2021 season for Gilbert and the Trojans has gone the other way. They won their first five games and have a record of 6-1 heading into the rest of their region play with a run-in of Monroe, Cairo and Thomas County Central to finish their regular season. 

“Last year it took us until Game Two before we found our identity,” Gilbert says. “The rest of the games, even though we didn’t win any of them, we didn’t play badly in any of them. We found the holes that needed to be addressed and we put talent in their right place.” 

Gilbert

Johnny Gilbert, a graduate of Dougherty High School, returned as head coach in 2019.

Credit: WALB-TV

Getting a true off-season has been big for Gilbert and his staff as they try to turn the program around. Just to give you an idea, the number of wins this season alone have added up to the number of wins dating back to 2016-2020. The last time Dougherty finished above .500 was 2008 when the legendary Charles Flowers was in charge of the program. 

“Any time you build a program, it always starts with the off-season,” he says. “We got the weight training and conditioning started in the spring this year. Last year, we knew our identity and it got to grow this spring. We have high expectations around here. When we got to have that normalcy and those ten days it leads to being consistent, putting things together and keeping things together." 

“You keep those pieces together and you can have a good summer. Then, we can see what our summer workouts can do and we can keep putting it together leading into this season.” 

Gilbert admits last season was difficult on multiple fronts and there were knock-on effects for the 2021 year. All but one of the teams the Trojans initially had as non-region opponents didn’t get games last season, so they had to find other opponents for two-year deals in 2021 and 2022. That made it very difficult, in return, to find opponents this season leading into a five-game region schedule. 

dougherty

Dougherty players Daymon Polite (L) and Sergio White celebrate during a recent Dougherty win.

Credit: Joe Whitfield, The Albany Herald

“So, yes, we had to travel a lot early this year,” Gilbert says. It meant making trips to DeKalb County, Macon and Ashburn before region play. Randolph-Clay agreed to play last week, but that required a 55-mile drive to Cuthbert. “Gilbert says they've had to sacrifice a lot this year so far. 

“I think, because of all this, you could call this year’s team a bunch of ‘overcomers.’ They have had to adjust and adapt on the fly this season. But all of that consistency we had in the spring and summer has helped deal with all of that.” 

If we want to get into the playoffs, we have to do well these next few weeks.

If you had gone to Coach Gilbert at the beginning of the year and told him he would be 5-0 out of the blocks, he wouldn’t have believed you. But the next game on the schedule, the game in Bainbridge, was a lesson to build on. The team’s worst performance all year featured missed tackles, dropped passes, a snap over center and a scoop-and-score. It gave the team a chance to learn and rebound for the Randolph-Clay game last Friday and the final region push that starts this week with Monroe. 

“It is the peak part of our region schedule,” Gilbert admits. “This will be our measuring stick and, those teams in Cairo and Thomas County Central, are some of the top competitors in our region. If we want to get into the playoffs, we have to do well these next few weeks. We want our name to be mentioned in the same breath of all those other teams around us as well." 

“All of this has to happen as we’re turning the program around.” 

For Gilbert, this is probably more personal than most. He grew up in Albany, went to Monroe and got his college degree from Albany State. He was the first in his family to get a college degree and was called home by Principal Eddie Johnson from his Atlanta-area coaching job at Creekside Christian almost three years ago. Gilbert wants to build his players into good fathers, husbands, and neighbors and, now, the wins are outnumbering the losses. 

On and off the field. 

Play it safe, everyone... I’ll see you soon...