Decatur High Names New Coaches

By Bill Banks

With three weeks until school opens, Decatur High Athletics Director Carter Wilson has solidified his staff by hiring four new head coaches.

In April Scott Jackson was named head football, replacing Brad Waggoner who left after one year to become football coach and athletic director at Lumpkin County. Jackson begins five-days-a-week practices July 31, with a scrimmage scheduled for Aug. 16 at Holy Innocents’ and the season opener Aug. 30 at home against Grady.

Wilson also promoted Carlos Cardoza-Oquendo to head baseball coach, David Harbin to head boys soccer coach and Danielle Whichard to head cross country coach.

Cardoza was interim head coach last spring going 14-13 overall, 7-7 in Region 6-AAA, with Decatur making the state playoffs for the first time since 2009.

Harbin replaces Doug Altizer who, Wilson said, “stepped down to coach a club soccer program.” Whichard subs for Claire McCarty who’s having a baby, and probably will return as head coach in 2014.

Both Cardoza and Harbin were star Decatur High athletes in the millennium’s first decade.

Cardoza, 26, graduated from Decatur in 2005 before playing two years at Georgia State and two years at Armstrong Atlantic State University, where he was a gold glove second baseman and made All Peach Belt Conference.

He played two years of pro ball in the Puerto Rican winter league before joining the Decatur High staff as a Spanish teacher in 2011.

Born in San Juan – his father teaches at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology and his mother formerly taught Spanish at the Glenwood 4/5 Academy – Cardoza said recently that it’s time for a “culture change” in the baseball program.

“Our guys need to start playing competitive ball in the summer and fall,” he said. “By that I mean getting out and playing in national tournaments. If we get that, then we can begin developing a bunch of young athletes who can compete. When you compete, then winning games becomes a byproduct of that.

“The second part of my job,” he added, “is networking to help get guys to the next level, to get them into college baseball, either in state or somewhere in the southeast.”

Cardoza’s assistants are Zach Duncan (a new Special Education teach at Decatur High who’ll also assist in football), Scott Frazier, community coach Bryon Jordan, and longtime softball coach Gary Anderson who, Cardoza said, “has to stay with me until he retires.”

Harbin, 28, was born and raised in Decatur, attending the high school (he graduated in 2003) during a golden era of sports. In 2001-02 and 2002-03 he was mostly a starting guard on basketball teams that went to back-to-back state finals and where, he pointed out, “I became very good at deferring to the great, talented teammates I was surrounded by.”

In the spring of those years he played on soccer teams that also went to back-to-back finals, winning the state championship in 2003. In December, 2003, the fall after he graduated, Decatur’s football team played in the state finals in the Georgia Dome.

Harbin went on to play soccer at Winthrop University, with the team finishing as Big-South runners-up in 2005, and Big-South champions in 2006, including an NCAA tournament appearance.

He’s taught seventh-grade Humanities at Renfroe Middle for the last five years while also serving during that period as head coach for the JV boys’ basketball team and varsity basketball assistant. He’ll continue his basketball chores at least through this year.

But he’s also maintained his soccer chops. Since graduating from Winthrop he’s spent the last eight summers working as camp coordinator at the University of Alabama-Birmingham’s girls’ soccer camps and Paul Harbin’s girls’ soccer camps (Paul, his uncle, started the girls' soccer programs at Mercer University and UAB, where he coached for 15 years).

Harbin’s assistant will be his old Decatur High coach Chris Hambie, who was the assistant and architect of those ’02-’03 state finalists.  He’s also the father of former Decatur footballer Chris Hambie, now a sophomore linebacker at Morehouse. 

In an email Harbin wrote that the elder Hambie “has played and coached the game for many years, at many different levels.  I know from my experience as a player on his team that he commands attention, emphasizes discipline and structure, and his toughness is contagious.

“Our work will begin early, and our focus will be on off-season workouts and conditioning,” he added. “We want to be as fast and strong as possible in January when the season begins.

Part of Whichard’s philosophy as new cross country coach is to lead by example.

Raised near Richmond, Va., she’s a 1999 graduate of the University of Mary Washington (in Fredericksburg, Va.) where she ran cross country, swam and played soccer. Now 36, she runs 40 miles a week and plans on working out with her team every day.  

“I want the kids to understand that I share their effort and their pain,” Whichard said. “We’ve got a range of abilities on our team, from outstanding athletes to beginners. But whatever their athletic ability, I want them all giving effort, all giving 100 percent. If they do that I’ll be happy regardless of their time.”

Whichard majored in math at Mary Washington then earned her masters in education from Kennesaw State in 2011. In between she worked eight years as a Risk Analyst for JP Morgan Chase. She begins her third year at Decatur High where she’ll teach freshman and sophomore math. The last two years she’s been assistant Cross Country coach and head girls soccer coach at Renfroe.

Last season the girls’ Cross Country team advanced to state while the boys’ barely missed.  Practice begins on Aug. 6.