Clarke Central High School head varsity football coach David Perno coaches his team during the 2017 spring scrimmage football game. Perno aims to not only grow his players in the realms of football but in character as well. “I just try to emphasize grades and get them involved in community service and understanding the value of giving back and sacrifice and just teaching them,” Perno said. “We’re trying to develop the type of character in these young players that will help them way beyond college and for the rest of their life. Photo by Delia Adamson
Clarke Central High School head varsity football coach David Perno has made significant improvements to the CCHS football program in his first two years as coach.
During his first two years as Clarke Central High School head varsity football coach, David Perno has made drastic changes to the physical, mental and financial appearance of the program.
The CCHS community knows his story: football star at CCHS who brought his team to a state championship title in 1985, only to switch lanes from football to baseball, playing for the University of Georgia and later becoming their head coach, leading them to three College World Series. All of this, only to find himself right back where he started: the football program at CCHS.
From the start of Perno’s coaching career, the atmosphere and environment that he brought with him was something that CCHS hadn’t seen in a while.
“(Perno) has done a really good job at getting a lot more players to come out, play, be a part of the program and make sure everything is moving in the right direction, which was a big task before he got here,” CCHS varsity football offensive assistant Aaron Cavin said.
No one can vouch for this improvement more than senior center Nicholas Sligh, who recently committed to Yale University to play football. Sligh came to CCHS at the start of his junior year, just in time for Perno’s first season. Sligh was a transfer from North Oconee High School and experienced noticeable differences immediately.
“At North Oconee, I played under Terry Tuley. He is an old, well-respected coach in this area. He was really experienced and had a ton of years coaching. I came in a situation where Perno was taking his first football coaching job, as he had been the head baseball coach at UGA,” Sligh said. “It was really good to come in under his leadership. I had a good relationship with him by the time I got here. He was really outgoing, really kind to me. Really tried to help me adjust to the school in every way possible.”
The progress that Perno has made in just his first two years coaching has made an impact, and, according to Sligh, these changes are very recognizable.
“The couple of years before I got here there was a ton of talent, but we didn’t really use our talent to the best of our ability. There were a couple of teams that had losing records that had a ton of really good players on them that probably should have performed better, but they just weren’t bought into the dreams of winning a state championship,” Sligh said. “(Perno) just wanted us to buy into putting the team before ourselves.”
While the excitement that Perno injects into the CCHS atmosphere is easily recognizable at school, the impact he is having with alumni and boosters might not be as apparent to the casual fan.
“We have been able to raise a lot more money. Getting the alumni involved has helped out a lot, and just with his connections from being a former player and student here. Just getting people to get excited about CCHS again, so that has been one of the biggest improvements that he has made,” Cavin said.
While players have already seen recent financial advances within the CCHS football program already, they have yet to see the newest purchase, which will be a renovation of the weight training room.
“We got a big renovation coming right after spring ball and it’s going to change that place and that’s going to help our program tremendously, you know, long term and short term. And so we just got a lot of excitement and a lot of support right now and our kids need to realize that they need to do their part,” Perno said.
Despite having a new indoor weight training facility on the way, the graduation of this year’s senior class has left the team with holes in the depth chart. Aware of the odds, Perno has plans to readjust his team to better fit their youth by adding the option to a part of the offense that he has already developed.
“Right now, the system is built for two quarterbacks. I mean, it’s a lot more than just an option. I mean, we are going to run some option, but we got a lot more in there than just that,” Perno said. “I just think that having this versatility with the read option we can still run the ball and the run plays we ran last year and is going to create more opportunity for younger teams to be successful from losing a lot of great seniors.”
Sligh is confident that the program will continue in the right direction despite a large loss of senior leaders.
“There are a ton of really talented guys coming up. We lost a lot of senior leaders this year, so there will be new leaders that will have to be found, but I am sure that that will happen,” Sligh said.
With many years to come, Perno predicts that a CCHS storm is coming that will take the Georgia High School Association football by the throat.
“I think the only thing that really hadn’t come in (yet was) us winning a championship and I think that’s down the road,” Perno said. “We’ve got to fall in line and everything’s got to come together and we got to keep getting better off the field. And I think when all that comes in and if we just keep pushing like we are and, and these kids keep responding, I think eventually our time will come. We just got to keep doing things the right way,” Perno said.
