Pleasant Home head football coach Chris Mason announced his resignation on Tuesday morning and the PHS administration quickly promoted defensive coordinator Richard Mercer to the helm of the Eagles.

“After Coach Mason made his decision, we decided that we just hire in-house,” Pleasant Home principal Craig Nichols said. “Coach Mercer has done a great job as an assistant and we are happy to have him step up as the head coach.”

For Mercer, it will be his second stint as a head football coach.

“I had a stint down in Mobile County where I coached at Satsuma,” Mercer said. “It was kind of a similar situation where the head coach left and they promoted me to interim head coach before giving me the position. I was only there for a year when Satsuma split from the Mobile County School system and I decided to mozzie on out of there.”

Three years ago, Mercer came to Pleasant Home with Mason.

“I came up here with Mason when he got the job three years ago,” Mercer said. “Mason has down a lot of great things since he started here and I just hope that I can help build on the foundation that he has put in place.”

Over the weekend, Mercer said that Eagles played in a spring jamboree and he was pleased with what he saw.

“We played some big teams over the weekend,” Mercer said. “A lot of big 2A and 3A schools, and I was really pleased that we held our own with them. We lost a big class last year, but I feel good about the skill players that we have coming back. Now, we have to find the guys in the trenches to block.”