WKRG: No. 1 GSHS football program subject of investigation

WKRG: No. 1 GSHS football program subject of investigation
By Fran Thompson
Gulf Shores City Schools attorneys have filed a cease and desist request letter to WKRG News following a report that Gulf Shores High School’s athletic program is being investigated by the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA) in part because a Gulf Shores-based fitness company, Gulf Coast Athletics, failed to pay rent on three signed leases for OneClub apartments in which four GSHS transfer student-athletes, including three football players, and their family members resided.
Gulf Shores Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Akin told WKRG that “only” nine of the school’s 100 new transfers were on the football team. He later told Al.com that the same issues WKRG reported were addressed through a 2021 AHSAA investigation. “My understanding is the issue was resolved and a final ruling issued by the AHSAA at that time,” Akin said to Al.com.
AHSAA investigators were going to be on campus on Oct. 30, according to the WKRG report.
WKRG reported that Gulf Coast Athletics, which has a listed business address at The Wharf in Orange Beach, was responsible for the terms of leases signed with OneClub beginning in April of 2021 and the father of two GSHS student-athletes was hired by Gulf Shores City Schools as a custodian.
Akin said this does not violate ASHAA rules regarding transfers. “We have a very detailed enrollment process and I am convinced that we are doing things in the right way,” he said in the WKRG report.
In a statement to AL.com on Oct. 27, Akin said his school system’s attorney sent the cease and desist letter to WKRG because the story is inaccurate.
Akin also sent AL.com an affidavit from Gulf Coast Athletics owner Jason Barnett, in which Barnett said he never paid any rental or utility fees on behalf of Gulf Shores student athletes or their families.
As long as Barnett was not affiliated with the school or acting on behalf of a Gulf Shores City Schools employee, paying a family’s rent would not be against AHSAA rules anyway.
But like Barnett stated in the affidavit Akin sent Al.com, Gulf Coast Athletics failed to pay rent on apartments that were leased by his company and occupied by the families of GSHS transfer student-athletes. That is what WKRG reported.
“Gulf Shores City Schools has and will continue to fully and completely comply with the investigative efforts into this matter until it reaches its conclusion,” Akin stated to Al.com.
The unbeaten and top ranked Dolphins host B.C. Rain in their regular-season finale on Nov. 3. The playoffs start the following week. The 2022 team went 11-2 under third year coach Mark Hudspeth and won two play-off games.
Hudspeth has turned the program completely around on the strength of its transfer athletes. But what football player with aspirations to reach his potential would not want to play for coaches who would be at home in any D-1 football program in the country and a program that is organized and run like a college program?
GSHS defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder served in that same capacity for Bowling Green, Georgia, the Auburn Tigers and the Atlanta Falcons. The coach VanGorder replaced, Paul Rhoads, was on staff at Ohio State in 2021 and was the defensive coordinator at Arizona and Arkansas before that. He was also head coach at Iowa State for seven seasons.
GSHS offensive coordinator Kenny Edenfield had the same job at South Alabama and Troy. He was also the offensive coordinator for six of Hudspeth’s seven seasons at North Alabama. He was the offensive coordinator for three of Neal Brown’s four years as the Troy head coach (One of his QBs was GSHS alum Brandon Silvers).
The Dolphins finished 2-8 during the season before Hudspeth took over and had gone 9-60 over the last six years prior to his arrival.
Before Hudspeth came aboard, the team last made the play-offs in 2013, with Ben Blackmon at the helm of that 8-3 team. Blackmon, the current coach at Enterprise, left Gulf Shores to coach Spanish Fort for seven seasons (2015-2021) and led the Toros to the 2015 6A state title.
Blackmon had replaced Duane Davis, who was fired by then first-year principal Ernie Rosado less than two weeks after the Dolphins made their first playoff appearance in school history. The Dolphins finished that 2008 season with a 7-4 record. Davis took over the program from Robby Guthrie, who went 1-28 during the school’s first three years as a varsity program.
Hudspeth’s coaching credentials easily stood out among the more than 100 resumes submitted to replace Matt Blake before the 2021 season.
He was his college (Delta State) team’s starting safety as a junior and starting quarterback as a senior. He returned to his alma matter, Winston Academy, and took that program from four wins in the previous two seasons to a 25–1 record and the 1997 Mississippi Private School Association Class A state title.
He coached at Central Arkansas and Nicholls State before helping Delta State win the 2000 Division II championship. With Hudspeth as offensive coordinator, the Delta State offense set title-game records in rushing yards (524), total yards (649) and first downs (36) en route to a 63–34 win.
In 2001, Hudspeth was the offensive coordinator at Navy. In 2002, he was hired for his first head coaching job at North Alabama and had an incredible run there, going 66-21 in six years. He was the passing game coordinator at Mississippi State for two years before taking over the program at Louisiana–Lafayette.
In his first season in Lafayette, he led a Rajun Cajuns’ team that finished 3–9 the year before to a 9–4 record and its first bowl berth since 1970. He added three more 9–4 seasons and three more bowl games in Lafayette.
Those 36 wins rank as the most successful four-year run in program history. But the school vacated 22 of those wins, including victories in the 2011 and 2013 New Orleans Bowl, after the NCAA determined that a former assistant coach, acting alone, was involved in conduct that led to falsifying ACT scores of five prospective players.
In 2018, Hudspeth returned to Mississippi State as assistant head coach. That 8-5 Bulldog season included wins against Auburn and Texas A&M and a trip to the New Year’s Day Outback Bowl.
In 2019, his lone year at Austin Peay, Hudspeth led the team to a record 11 wins and a share of the Ohio Valley Conference title, its first conference title in 42 years.
Hudspeth was in the midst of serving a 20-day suspension for violations of his employment agreement when he resigned at Austin Peay. Two of his Austin Peay assistant coaches left the program six days prior to Hudspeth’s suspension and a third six days after he resigned, according to ClarksvilleNow.com.