Central Coach Cortney Braswell
photo by Dennis Norwood
In Major League Baseball, probably more so than any other sport, players that often move from team to team are tagged journeymen.
Harry “Suitcase” Simpson, born in Atlanta and buried in Dalton, Ga., where he resided for years, was traded five times from 1951-59 and played with the Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Athletics, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates.
However, he didn’t get his nickname necessarily because of his frequency of moving. The story goes that the moniker resulted from his big feet and the big shoes he wore on them.
The journeyman label best fits Octavio Dotel than Simpson. Dotel played for a big league record 13 franchises from 1999 to 2013. His longest stint was five years with Houston Astros. He was with three clubs for two years apiece, but had 1-year stops with nine different clubs.
Fast forward and Cortney Braswell comes into the conversation.
Braswell who has had worked at seven different high schools in eight years and is now head coach at Central High School – his second stop there in three years.
Braswell also had one-year stays at Ringgold, Soddy-Daisy, East Ridge, Notre Dame, North (Ga.) Murray, Central (the first time) and Bradley Central, mostly as a defensive coordinator, before returning to Central for his first head coaching job.
The 29-year-old “coach for hire” has a rock-solid explanation for his repeated career moves.
“I wasn’t a teacher,” he said. “I didn’t have my degree, so I was a community, or volunteer, coach. As the Bible says the Lord works in mysterious ways. A lot of coaches would like a five-year deal with guaranteed money, but that’s certainly not the world some of us live in.
“Things happen for a reason and that reason could be for a season or a lifetime. I like to think all the changes I’ve made were preparation for my current job as a head coach at Central.”
Braswell traces his lack of a degree back to the time he was a “non-traditional student” and acknowledges he would change that if given a “do over.”
“I went the dumb and dumber route,” he said. “I was fortunate to go to Baylor (he was an all-state running back for the Red Raiders), but I didn’t take care of academics at Liberty University where I played football with two guys that went on to the NFL. I sometimes wonder what might have been and I wish I’d listened to people who tried to give me good advice. These days I want my students and players to listen to me because I’ve been there.
“I want them to hear what I didn’t hear.”
Braswell is saying that he squandered some great opportunities presented to him. He also said his playing days didn’t end like he wanted and that also has stuck in his craw for years.
The whiff in academics and rock-wall end to his playing career has been a collective burr under his saddle for years.
“I think about that every day,” he said. “I don’t want to ever repeat that failure. It motivates me every day; makes me second-guess everything. I want to do right by the kids by doing things the right way because I still have a chip on my shoulder.”
What Braswell hasn’t wasted is his capacity to coach football. Despite his wandering ways, head coaches continually hired him knowing it was likely a one-year shot.
Now, he’s a degreed teacher and just might be ready to make Central II a long-standing stop and not just a stop-over.
He wasn’t overwhelmed by the challenge of turning around the Pounders’ football fortunes: they have lost 13 consecutive games, all 10 last season and the final three of 2014.
Braswell certainly didn’t hesitate taking the job because of the lack of on-field success.
“I don’t worry about that,” he said. “I want the hard job, even though it’s easier to take over at a place that has won recently. I knew these kids, this administration and the potential of this program. I guarantee you these kids don’t care about the losing streak, but we’re not happy about it either.
“If a team wins a state championship, it wants another one. Charles Quarles (Maryville) and Gary Rankin (Alcoa) didn’t stop with one state title. They worked to win more. How much is enough? I’m not sure, but I believe if we ever win one we’ll sure want to try for more.”
Braswell’s one year between his first stint at Central and the second has turned into a positive for him and his players.
Most know Braswell. He knows most of them, especially senior strong safety D. J. Baxter and junior offensive lineman Austin Banther: they were the only two players who saw varsity action in Braswell’s time at Central in 2014.
As a group, current players, including 6-foot-7, 293-pound McClendon Curtis, a basketball star transfer from McCallie that didn’t play football in 2015, have bought into what Braswell and his staff are selling this time around.
“It’s a culture change,” Braswell said. “A 0-10 season doesn’t have much to do with coaching, but more about not winning at anything. There were kids misbehaving at home and at school; they didn’t win in the classroom or on the field. They didn’t win anywhere.
“Winners win and losers lose. It’s that simple. We’re trying not to leave room for a gray area. The hardest thing for them is to believe they can win at anything. So, they had to believe in themselves long before they believed in me.”
The Pounders took their first baby step under Braswell’s tutelage on Saturday when they played Ooltewah in the jamboree at Finley Stadium. “Braswell’s Ballers” open the regular season on Friday at Notre Dame, where he spent the 2012 season as coach Charles Fant’s defensive coordinator.
That was also a time when Braswell was finishing his college degree.
“It was time for me to start putting food on the table,” he said, “and I had to get a job. Charles and Damon Floyd (Bradley Central coach) are two of my best friends in the world. I might still be at Notre Dame if I had that degree.”
Pounders, are you listening?
(Reach Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)