Former Auburn star Sammie Coates started his second season coaching Columbia High School football off in style. After a winless decade and a 101-game losing streak, the Eagles finally picked up their first victory since 2015 on Saturday night, downing Greensboro 41-14 in a tide-changing rout for the program.
Coates predicted in the preseason that merely fielding a full roster of 60 players would help the team improve after going 0-10 in 2025 with 28 student-athletes playing across 22 offensive and defensive positions, plus special teams.
“They seen the culture change, they seen the shift and what we was trying to build, they came out. That was huge. That was my biggest problem last year. Numbers. They buying in because we show we really care about them,” Coates said.
Coates revealed before his first season at Columbia that Gatorade is helping the program develop talent with the help of Gatorade Sports Science Institute experts for personalized sweat testing and education.
"Gatorade isn’t just fueling our team – they’re helping us re-write the script,” Coates said last August. “With their support, our guys are training smarter, performing more efficiently and learning what it takes to be great on and off the field."
That work was evident on Saturday night. The last time Columbia even scored 40 points was during a 49-40 loss on September 25, 2020, to Ardmore. This was the most dominant defensive showing from the Eagles since 2013, which was the last time they gave up fewer than 15 points.
Coates, with plenty of help, transformed Columbia. Who knows what more could be accomplished in AHSAA Class 5A football with Coates at the helm?
Sammi Coates' coaching prospects skyrocketed with Columbia's big win
Coates was the clear best receiver for the Tigers back during the magical 2013 season that nearly ended in a national championship. He's a name that's recognizable to the college football community. Now, he's a superstar name in the high school head coaching realm in Alabama.
Coates, a native of Leroy, Alabama, which has fewer than 1,000 residents, worked his way up from missing his freshman season at AU to starring for a CFP contender to playing in the NFL for five years. His coaching career has already seen him rise from being a high school assistant coach in Florida to a Division III and Division II position coach in Ohio and Virginia, respectively, to now a high school head coach who's turning around a recent historical punching bag in Huntsville.
The natural progression would be to get to a bigger high school in Alabama, in 6A or 7A, before finding a Division I college job. Depending on how high the Eagles fly this coming fall, Coates could see his road to a collegiate coaching staff expedited.
This victory puts a lot of things on the table. It may become tough for Coates to leave Columbia with all the sentimental value this season could hold, but if he keeps building a name for himself, he just may have to explore what's out there.
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