State champion football coach steps down after one year with fledgling program
Central Kentucky’s newest high school football program is barely a year old, but a search for its third head coach is already underway.
Great Crossing Coach Paul Rains announced his resignation on Friday, stepping down after guiding the Warhawks through the first season in program history last year. Rains, 58, was promoted to the position last spring when Jason Chappell stepped down after four months as head coach because of personal reasons.
A high school coaching veteran with more than 200 wins and a state championship under his belt, Rains was the natural choice to step in and lead a fledgling program under difficult circumstances. In 2003 he took over as head coach at Lexington Christian Academy, which had won just four games in its first three seasons as a program before Rains arrived. He led LCA to the 2009 Class A state championship before leaving the program.
“He’s been a blessing for us to have around our coaches and our kids,” Great Crossing Athletics Director Austin Haywood told the Herald-Leader in a phone interview. “There was really no better person to be in place for a first-year program that was taking baby steps to get where we want to be.”
Rains notched the 209th win of his head coaching career last October when the Warhawks defeated Grant County, 28-20, for their only victory of the season. His career record stands at 209-108.
“When you get a coach like Paul Rains, he’s seen about everything you can see in a football program. He’s coached about every type of kid you could possibly coach, so having him step in was crucial,” Haywood said. “A guy like him knows how to handle adversity in any situation. His biggest strength was keeping coaches positive, keeping players positive and keeping parents and people that had a genuine interest in the program positive and on an upward trend in terms of what the vision was for our program.”
Rains led eight different schools over 28 seasons as a head coach, including Montgomery County, Madison Central, Mercer County and Paul Laurence Dunbar. He spent two seasons as an assistant under Jim McKee at Scott County before joining the inaugural staff at Great Crossing.
When he accepted the Great Crossing job, Rains indicated he planned to retire from his teaching position after this school year. A new state law that went into effect in January requires anyone drawing teacher’s retirement to observe a 90-day waiting period before returning to any position with a school, such as coaching.
In a video posted to the Great Crossing football Twitter account on Friday, Rains indicated that his hand was forced because of the law.
“The Kentucky retirement system requires me to sit out of coaching or anything for 90 days when I retire as a teacher,” Rains said. “That’s a new law, so I really don’t have much choice in the matter.”
In his Twitter post, Rains went on to say, “I’d like to say thank you to all my coaches and players I got to work with this year. I really had some special relationships with each and every one of you and some wonderful memories,” Rains said. “Especially our first win in Great Crossing history is something that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.”
Rains did not immediately return a phone call from the Herald-Leader seeking comment.
Haywood said the search for Great Crossing’s third head coach is underway and many inquiries have already been made about the position. Haywood hopes to have a new coach in place within two weeks and said that while he’s confident there are qualified candidates on the Warhawks’ current staff, he’ll also consider applicants from outside the program.
“We’ve got a committee together already starting to work on applicants,” Haywood said. “There’s a genuine interest there and I think people know what the future of Great Crossing looks like in terms of football and as a school. They know it’s going to be an exciting place to be for years to come.”
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 6:00 PM.
