LIBERTY — Scott Carnegie had been away from coaching at Amite School Center for the past four years, but when he learned the Rebels were looking for someone to lead the football program he stepped up to the plate and was hired as the new head coach.
Carnegie succeeds Mitch Mitchell, who was ASC’s head football coach and headmaster for two years and is now Parklane Academy’s athletic director.
“I have a passion for coaching, and I have a passion for these kids because I used to coach these kids,” Carnegie said. “Most all of them, I coached them back in the days.”
The new head coach lives in Amite County and is the father of Rebels junior running back and defensive back McCain Carnegie. Scott started the youth football program at ASC that runs through sixth grade and coached McCain.
Scott also coached his son on the United States Specialty Sports Association baseball team the Orange Crush from McComb that won the World Series in 2012. McCain was the catcher of every game on that team but also plays center field.
“I’ve coached him four years,” Scott said. “I’m hoping I won’t be too hard on him, but you always expect more out of your son. He gives 100 percent, and most of these kids do give 100 percent. As long as they’re giving their all, that’s all I ask them to do.”
Carnegie was an ASC student from first through eighth grade but went to high school at Centreville Academy where he graduated in 1984. He was a running back and linebacker on the football team. He played for Southwest Mississippi Community College, formerly called Southwest Junior College, as a slotback in 1984 and ’85.
He got back into coaching at ASC when his daughters, Shelby James and Coleigh Scronce, played softball for the school. James and Scronce also played basketball.
Coach Carnegie was an assistant under head softball coach Billy Jones for three years, was the head coach of the peewee football team and assistant high school football coach for two years under former head coaches Cori Britt and Paul Kirchharr.
The softball team won two state championships while Carnegie was an assistant. He said he was first interested in leading the program to help put a stop to the turnover rate at the head coaching position. He said he contacted Jones, who is also the athletic director and still the head softball coach, to apply to be the head football coach.
“I coached these kids when they were younger,” he said. “Some of the parents contacted me and asked me if I’d be interested and wanted me to get involved. I called the (athletic director) Billy Jones. I said before these kids have to have a coach come in from the outside that don’t know them and have to learn them all over again that I would step up and do it.”
Carnegie also played baseball and basketball while running track in high school, but football was his passion.
Bill Hurst was Scott’s head coach in football and track at Centreville.
Carnegie recalled winning the district championship most of his years playing high school football and winning two state championships in track. He ran the 440- and 880-mile relay and participated in the high and triple jump.
Carnegie said Hurst instilled “discipline, execution, simplicity.”
“Bill was a mentor of every guy that ever went through his program,” the new ASC head football coach said. “I feel like I don’t think there’s nobody else you could go and play for that you could learn football more than he could teach you. He’s the winningest coach, as far as I know, in the state of Mississippi.”
Carnegie said Jones got him involved with ASC and he attempts to bond with athletes the way Hurst does.
“Billy was our draw to start here, and then when I got involved, I just fell in love with the kids and the school,” Carnegie said. “The Lord gives everybody a gift, and mine is bonding. I feel like I have a way of bonding with these kids, and that’s what Bill used to do to us. He’d have a way of getting to you to give 110 percent of your full potential out of you, and he was one of the best at it.”
Carnegie said he believes in his athletes, loves and cares for every one of them. He added his tells his athletes their first priority should be God, then family, then school and lastly football.
Looking ahead to the upcoming season, Carnegie said his team should be strong at the line and skill position led by senior running back Davin Booty, who carried the ball 65 to 70 percent of the time last season and senior linebacker and fullback Blaine Milton.
ASC lost in the first round of the playoffs last season, and the new head coach reported 23 athletes are working out this summer.
Tyler Cunningham, Jordan Clark, Jeremy Pattie and Will McNabb are the assistant coaches. Clark played high school football at Centreville and for Carnegie as a student at ASC, while McNabb played for ASC.
