The Covington County Board of Education named John Higgins as the new head coach for the Straughn Tigers’ football team at Tuesday night’s board meeting.

“We had over 60 applicants put in the for the job, not including the ones that just called or asked about the job,” Straughn High School principal Donny Powell said. “We really feel like that he (Higgins) is the person that is going to help us move back in the right direction.”

Higgins has been an assistant coach for the Tigers for the past two years under former head coach Chris Wilson, who resigned last month to take a job at Mary. G. Montgomery.

“I’m very excited about this opportunity,” Higgins said. “We have a lot of work to do, but we are going to work hard to get it done. I can promise you that much.”

Higgins was hired by Straughn as a social science teacher at Straughn Middle School in 2015.

Before coming to Straughn, Higgins had been out of the coaching scene.

“He has more 25 years experience as a coach and player and he is very knowledgeable about the game,” Powell said. “He has experience as an assistant coach, coordinator, head coach and he also had the opportunity to play college football at the University of Miami. He is a guy that the kids love and they will do anything for him.”

His previous head coaching experience was two seasons at Dallas County in 2007 and 2008.

Higgins led Dallas County to a 5-15 record in his two seasons.

“There are going to be a few things that we change,” Higgins said. “Chris (Wilson) did a lot of good things here and we are going to try and build on that. We do have to work on our discipline and our attention to detail. We want to do some things and just see if we can play better. We want to get Straughn football back to what it used to be.”

In his two seasons as an assistant coach and coordinator for the Tigers, Higgins helped guide Straughn to two-straight playoff appearances including an upset win over Bibb County in the first round of the 2015 playoffs.

Higgins said that he is currently in the process of hiring a couple of assistant coaches.

“I’m going to have the chance to bring in some coaches,” Higgins said. “I want to find some people with connections to Straughn and bring them home.”

Powell said that Higgins would immediately take over as head coach and athletic director. In the 2017-18 school year he will also teach at SHS.