Raised in football, now following dad’s footsteps. 5 coaches share their journey.

Their anecdotes span from the joys of growing up in the football ecosystem — late nights at the field house, ball boy duties on a Friday, early mornings at practice — to the bittersweet moments of success after their fathers are no longer here.

Here are the some of their best stories.

Rich Fendley, Rockmart

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Rich Fendley didn’t miss a Warner Robins game from 1981 until he started playing for his dad, Richard Fendley Sr., in 1988. The Demons won championships in the state’s highest class both those seasons. The oldest boy in his house, Rich said he was always drawn to his father, Warner Robins’ longtime defensive coordinator and later head coach. That meant spending many afternoons at practice.

It also meant working as a ball boy on game days. He remembered waiting at home for his father to take him to the field on Friday afternoons, right after their weekly stop.

“He would stop at Hardee’s and buy me a Coca-Cola and a cookie, and I would eat that on the way up to school, and then of course, I got to be on the sidelines,” Rich said. “I was the ball boy, and I thought that was the greatest job on the planet.”

Rich loved riding the team bus to away games. The crowd’s roar when a player broke off a long run gave him chills.

“For a nine-year period, I just thought I had the greatest life, and I knew right then and there that (coaching) was what I wanted to do when I grow up,” he said.

The game has changed since Rich took his first coaching job, and so has the way coaches interact with players. Rich says he can’t be as tough with players as his father was, but the game days still connect him to those nights on the sideline with his dad.

“Football is still the same 30 years later for me,” he said. “It’s still on Friday nights when you hear that crowd when you run out just to start a game, and both sides are loud and going crazy.”

The four-time state champion coach says he still coaches a lot like his dad and credits him for his work ethic. Rich said the tough love that his father showed his players also shaped him into the coach he became.

“His compliments had value because he didn’t give them very often,” Rich said. “I respect that, and looking back on that, I think it helped shape me. I don’t look for validation from anybody in the profession. I just go and put my head down and go to work every day. I don’t need somebody to pat me on the back.

“My satisfaction comes from seeing all the coaches on staff pumped about what we’ve accomplished as a staff, and our kids and community being pumped about what our kids accomplished.”

His father, Richard, died in November 2017, about a month before Rich took the head job at Bowdon. Rich led the Red Devils to the first of four consecutive state championships four years later.

Rich remembers his first championship with a bittersweet tone.

“I just remember sitting there thinking, ‘Man, I wish my dad could see this,’ because as a kid and as a son, there’s nothing you want more than to make your parents happy and make them proud of you,” he said.

Chip Walker, Newnan

Credit: Jason Getz jgetz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz jgetz@ajc.com

Chip Walker’s earliest Friday night memories involve playing hooky. His father, Rodney Walker, would pull him out of school early every Friday just in time to make the pep rally.

Chip didn’t get to go to practice often, but he loved it so much as a kid that it’s affected his policy on kids at his practices.

“Probably a little different for me is I like for my coaches to bring their kids as much as they want to because it reminds me of those good days of when I got to do those same things,” Chip said.

Chip played high school and college football but was convinced he’d never coach. He took a “business job” out of college, but his father was already trying to nudge him back into football.

Rodney was leading Peach County on a playoff run right before his son graduated college. Rodney invited Chip to simply sit in the coaches’ box as an “extra set of eyes” for the postseason.

Chip obliged, and suddenly, football looked way better than business.

“I guess my dad was probably planting that seed a little bit,” Chip said. “I got that business job, and I worked for just a short amount of time, and I walked in and told my mom and dad I couldn’t see myself doing that for the rest of my life.

“I wanted to go coach football.”

Chip worked under three head coaches in four seasons before taking a job on his dad’s staff when he started at Sandy Creek in 1999. Rodney’s teams went 48-19 and won two region titles over the next six seasons before he retired with 302 Georgia victories and handed the program over to his son in 2005.

Chip won state titles at Sandy Creek in 2009, ’10 and ’12. The Walkers became the first father-son coaches to win state championships in 2009. Rodney had won with West Rome in 1985.

Chip, who has been at Newnan since 2017, said he leads his team like his father did, but their approaches to winning football games are opposite. An offensive mind, Chip tends to be an aggressive play-caller, while his defensive-minded father wanted to win on clock control and field position.

Their differences stood out minutes before Sandy Creek won its 2009 state title. Chip’s Patriots had just gained possession on the 36-yard line with a 15-9 lead over Clarke Central.

A conservative coach would likely lean on the run game, draining the seven minutes left while moving the ball into field goal range. But Chip, who stood next to his father on the sideline, isn’t that kind of coach.

“I kind of get ready for the play to be snapped, and my dad and (former Sandy Creek coach Frank Barton) are standing next to me, and my dad says, ‘What are you running?’” Chip recalled. “I said, ‘I ain’t running it. I’m throwing it deep,’ and he said, ‘Oh, crap.’”

The Patriots connected for a 36-yard touchdown pass, putting the game out of reach.

“We’re in the record books,” Rodney told Chip after that game, according to AJC reporting.

Rodney Walker died on May 9. Chip, who used to call his father after every practice, says some days are tougher than others.

“So many times, I’ve thought, ‘Man, I wish I could call and ask him what he thought about what we were doing,’ and it’s only been a month,” Chip said. “So I can’t imagine how it’s going to be when the game weeks roll around.

“But there’s a bunch of us that either played for him or coached for him, and we’re going to handle the way that we feel like he’d handle it in a lot of ways.”

Jaybo Shaw, Dawson County

Credit: Daniel Varnado/Special to the AJC

Credit: Daniel Varnado/Special to the AJC

Jaybo Shaw and his brother, fellow high school coach and former NFL quarterback Connor Shaw, spent their summers at practice. They stayed out until 11 p.m. on Thursday nights watching the field get painted and served as water boys and ball boys on game days.

During coaches’ meetings, their babysitters were 16-year-old quarterbacks. Jaybo didn’t have favorite professional athletes — he had his dad’s players.

“We always felt like we were part of the locker room,” Jaybo said. “That’s probably what I enjoyed the most was just those summers going to those camps, those wins after Friday night. Those are the memories to this day, especially with having three kids of my own now and seeing them run around a field house and kind of grow up similar.”

Shaw’s father, Lee Shaw, is one of the top 100 winningest coaches in Georgia high school history. But before Lee rattled off five consecutive region titles at Rabun County, he was a struggling first-time head coach at White County when Jaybo and Connor were young.

Jaybo noticed how much work went into winning when his father took over a program that hadn’t had a winning season in eight years. That’s what made White County’s 1997 upset win at Gainesville so special.

“I can see it to this day, how happy my dad was and how happy his team and his players were,” Jaybo said. “I got to ride the bus back with the players, and it just made such an impact on me at that age, and I was like, ‘This is what I want to do when I grow up.’”

Lee found the lion’s share of his career 195 wins at Rabun County and before that at Flowery Branch, where Connor and Jaybo each were all-state quarterbacks. But Jaybo most fondly remembers White County because of a lesson his dad taught.

“Those were the best five years that I would go back to, and the point being, dad never brought it home,” Jaybo said. “He never let the outside circumstances dictate what happened in our house, and it was always a lasting memory for me.

“Even now that I have kids, not giving into the outside world pressure and the wins (and) losses and still being a dad and still making my family feel like part of the program.”

Jaybo was his father’s quarterback at Flowery Branch for four years before rejoining his father as his offensive coordinator at Rabun County. The roles were different, but the tone of the jobs were the same: Don’t let dad down.

“Connor and I still laugh about it,” Jaybo said. “When I was calling plays for him, I almost just treated it like I was still his quarterback because he would still get mad or he’d still question something. It was like, ‘Alright, take the coaching, move on and not dwell on it.’”

Lee stepped down as head coach in 2018 partially because of a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. He handed the program over to his son, and suddenly, Jaybo went from offensive coordinator to head coach and athletic director.

Lee didn’t coach that season — he started again at Lakeview Academy in 2020 and is now entering his fourth season at Metter — but he was helping his son learn to lead a program beyond football.

Lee started the 2019 season watching games on the hill with fans. By Week 5, he was in the press box. A couple weeks later, he was criticizing play calls on a headset.

Jaybo, now entering his second season at Dawson County, knew his dad was ready to return to football before the season ended.

“We’re down at the quarterfinals playing Thomasville in a No. 1 versus No. 2 matchup, and everybody kind of thought it was a state championship,” Jaybo said. “I look down there, and dad’s on the sideline trying to call a timeout, and I’m like, ‘OK, you need to get back into (coaching.)’”

The Shaws went head-to-head last summer when Metter and Dawson County competed in a multiday minicamp. Jaybo saw the tension rise throughout the week, culminating in a fiery last day of competition.

He saw it coming, too, and warned his players ahead of time.

“I was like, ‘Listen, the man raised me. I played for him. I coached for him. I know what’s about to happen when we get in there. This is what’s going to happen, so we better not back down,’” Jaybo said. “I kind of gave them that whole spiel. We’re cut from the same cloth.

“They’re not going to back down from us, and by God, we’re not going to back down from them. I don’t care if he’s my dad or not.”

Jaybo said the last day was so intense that coaches accused him of planning it with his father.

“Me and dad were like, ‘No, we didn’t talk about making this thing pop off, it sure did,’” he said. “But then at the end of practice, seeing both teams dapping each other up and hugging each other and seeing coaches do it, and there’s no other way that he would rather have it or I would rather have it.”

Tyler Maloof, Lanier

Credit: Ken Sugiura

Credit: Ken Sugiura

Tyler Maloof comes from one of Georgia’s best-known coaching families. His first days around the game weren’t just around his dad, retired Norcross great Keith Maloof. They were also spent around his uncle, Kevin Maloof, while his dad coached under him at Dacula. Keith and Kevin were coached by their father, GACA Hall of Fame member George Maloof, at St. Pius.

By the time Keith had taken over at Norcross in 1999, Tyler loved summer practices enough to ride 45 minutes with his dad from his home in Winder.

“I’d get up at 5 in the morning, hop in the truck, sleep in the car on the way in and bring a lot of friends with me,” Tyler said. “Just a lot of memories hanging around the field house, hanging around practice and really idolizing a lot of those early year Norcross players.”

Tyler watched his father lead Norcross football to consistent statewide relevance for the first time since it started in 1957. The Blue Devils hadn’t won a playoff game in eight years when he took the job, and by Tyler’s sophomore year, the program became a perennial playoff contender that would win state titles in the highest class in 2012 and 2013.

Now the head coach at Lanier, another Gwinnett County program trying to establish itself, Tyler applies the same principles he watched his father use for 26 seasons in becoming Gwinnett County’s all-time winningest coach.

“One thing dad would say is if you knock on the door long enough, you’re eventually going to knock it down,” Tyler said. “That’s just a testament to being consistent and showing up every day and making sure that you can give your players your best self and challenge them and hold them accountable to continue to push the narrative and continue to strive to be better than they were the day before.”

Tyler saw his father’s ability to build and maintain relationships when he came back to coach for him in 2014. The Blue Devils were coming off back-to-back state championships at the time, and yet, Keith had largely kept his staff intact.

“By the time I was gone as a player and came back to coach, a lot of those same coaches who coached me in high school were still there,” Tyler said. “So that was a fun dynamic, seeing a lot of those guys that were my coaches now being a peer to them and being really a mentor to me.”

Tyler left Norcross for the head coaching position at Lanier in 2022, but that didn’t stop him from leaning on his father. Keith has remained a key mentor to Tyler in his first years as a head coach.

“These past four years, I’ve probably talked to him more than when I worked for him the previous eight years, just picking his brain about different things,” he said. “So I think he’s been really excited for me and excited to continue to watch me try and build this thing up and grow it.”

Keith retired in 2024, so he now spends his Friday nights helping his son on Lanier’s sidelines. Tyler still occasionally consults Keith during game-time decisions, and Keith still yells at referees like his job is at stake.

“I joke with the officials that just because of my last name, don’t take out everything that he’s yelled at you for, don’t take it out on me,” Tyler said.

Tyler got to coach against his father one time before he retired. Lanier and Norcross opened the 2024 season with the first father-son coaching matchup in Georgia since 2006.

Inclement weather and a stadium light outage extended a 31-10 Norcross win past midnight, but the Maloofs still remember the night fondly.

“Looking back, it’s something that me and my family will remember for a long time,” Tyler said. “Even though we didn’t win, just something really cool to coach against each other and compare notes afterwards.”

Tucker Pruitt, Camden County

Credit: Daniel Varnado

Credit: Daniel Varnado

Tucker Pruitt’s first duty on a football field was hydrating his dad’s players.

Luckily for him, Tucker is a much better coach than he was a water boy.

“Occasionally, we would kind of wander off and get caught during the timeout,” Tucker said. “They would need water, and we’d be down there playing football with a bottle or something. I got fired a few times, but I got rehired.”

The son of seven-time Florida state champion and longtime South Georgia coach Robby Pruitt was eventually promoted to ball boy. Tucker also helped spray smoke in the air as his dad’s teams took the field on Friday night.

The Pruitts didn’t move to Georgia until Robby took the job at Fitzgerald in 2000, Tucker’s freshman year. The move could have been difficult for Tucker, but the years he spent moving around proved to be an advantage for him. He was playing for a new team in a new state, but Pruitt knew his father’s offense well and what he expected of his players.

“If I was going to continue to play on the team, I didn’t have an option. I was going to do it his way and handle it better,” Tucker said. “The thing about growing up over the years is you get to learn and watch the game, but you also get to see how these coaches interact and how they handle every situation from winning to losing to getting a bad call by the referee to having the correct kids for this or that.”

Tucker played quarterback for Valdosta State, and when he realized the NFL was out of reach, he immediately pivoted to coaching. Tucker’s parents tried to help him consider other industries, but Robby’s career and accomplishments worked against him.

“The different kids that he mentored, that he sent to college or sent to work, and just the ministry of coaching and trying to invest in people and make them better,” Tucker said. “It really is a team thing and a family thing. So all of those things definitely had an impact on me joining the profession.”

Tucker and Robby are both still coaching — Robby is the only coach ever to win 200 games in two states — so they don’t get to attend each others’ games often. But Robby was there for the biggest game of Tucker’s career thus far — Fitzgerald’s first state championship since 1948.

Tucker’s fifth season leading the Purple Hurricane saw wins over six top-10 teams, culminating in a 21-7 win over Thomasville for the state title. It was a win for Robby, too, who led Fitzgerald back to statewide prominence when he started there 22 years before.

“It was great because he was the one that laid the foundation for that to happen,” Tucker said. “When he got to Fitzgerald in 2000, the program wasn’t very good at all.”

It was a full-circle moment for the Pruitt family, just like Robby’s recent decision to return to Union County in Florida, where his son’s love for football was born.

“I just really felt like I was a part of the whole deal, and I really wasn’t much of a part of it, but it was just a blessing, and I’m really thankful for that, and those are definitely some of the best memories of my life,” Tucker said.