Pike County's Grant resigns
(Dothan Eagles' David Mundee)

Veteran Pike County head coach Wayne Grant, who has guided the Bulldogs to five state championships and 185 wins, has tendered in a resignation as head football coach to school principal Mike Hall.

“I have handed in a resignation as football coach,” Grant told the Dothan Eagle Wednesday night.

However, Grant said he has not tendered a resignation from his duties as biology, anatomy and physiology teacher or as the girls softball coach or school athletic director.

No action has been taken yet by the Pike County School Board on the football resignation, which Grant said he handed to Hall last Thursday.

Grant did say he would conduct spring football practice at Pike County, which is currently going on. He said he has already informed Bulldog players of his resignation.

The veteran coach did not want to go into details Wednesday night of why he is resigning from his football post or why he is keeping his other roles.

Grant has been the Bulldog head coach for 19 years in two different stints — from 1982 to 1991 and from 1999 to this past season.

Pike County teams have gone 185-59 under his tutelage and won state titles in 1988, 1989, 2003, 2005 and 2006. Of his 19 teams at PCHS, 13 have advanced to at least the state quarterfinals.

The Bulldogs went 12-1 and reached the state quarterfinals last year before losing to eventual state champion Cordova.

Overall, Grant has been a head coach for 26 seasons, amassing a 219-99 record.

He began his career as an assistant coach at Zion Chapel, his alma mater. After one year, he was an assistant at Louisville for a year then was head coach at Lowndes Academy for one season.

He served as a graduate assistant at Troy University for a year, then two years as an assistant coach at Pike County before being named head coach in 1982. He spent nine years with the Bulldogs before taking a head job at Talladega.

After six years with the Tigers, Grant returned to the Wiregrass as assistant coach for a season at Goshen before being rehired as Pike County’s head coach in 1999.