Macon Touchdown Club awards local players and coaches, hosts Auburn coach

The Macon Touchdown Club held its annual spring jamboree Monday night, awarding several athletes and coaches from Macon and across Georgia in addition to hosting new Auburn football coach Alex Golesh.

The club gave out three awards to Macon athletes — Back of the Year, Lineman of the Year and Special Teams Player of the Year — while also recognizing its traditional “Super 7,” a list of players from around Georgia who were some of the state’s most impressive players and potential college recruits.

Northeast quarterback Jordan Wiggins netted the Back of the Year award after his 2,400 passing yards and 29 touchdowns last year. Rinaldo Callaway of Southwest won the Lineman of the Year honors for his 105 tackles, four interceptions and three pass deflections, though he was not there to accept the award because he enrolled early at Rutgers. Windsor’s Santiago Medina won Special Teams Player of the Year thanks to a stellar year punting, kicking and returning kickoffs that included a school record 47-yard field goal.

The Macon club also awarded Stratford head coach Paul Carroll with the Coach of the Year trophy after the Eagles claimed the GIAA 4A State Championship over Brookstone last year. The head coach watched his players rake in the awards from the Macon TD Club all season, but now he has his own plaque for a change.

The Touchdown Club also gave a shoutout to the entire Stratford team for their championship win, which gave the school its first title since 2004. Carroll, who was the head coach at Howard for six seasons before coming to Stratford for the 2024 season, now has an 18-6 overall record.

“The reason we got these awards is because of the coaching staff. All those guys that were with me over at Howard and are at Stratford now, they’ve worked really hard. They’ve helped get these kids where they need to be. It’s all about everybody coming together and working for that common goal (of winning a championship),” Carroll said. “It’s awesome to get these awards, too.”

Carroll already had his eyes set on next season at Monday’s dinner.

“We do (have some talent coming back), and they gotta understand that right when we finished Christmas break, the championship was over with. We’ve talked about this, it’s all or nothing this coming up year. We’ve got to get working in the weight room and get the kids here this summer to keep staying at that level,” he said. “It’s still about competing and buying in. I think we changed that tradition a little bit.”

The Super 7 consisted of players from across the state, though Macon did have one representative in Howard defensive back Ta’shawn Poole, a 4-star safety who has garnered recruiting interest from schools like Georgia, Florida State and Alabama, just to name a few.

Golesh was the main attraction for many of the club’s visitors, though, as the Auburn fight song rang out through speakers in the back of the room and cheers rose up as the Tigers head coach stepped up to the mic.

“I appreciate the invite and am grateful to (Georgia head coach) Kirby Smart for being busy tonight so I can do this,” Golesh quipped after the cheering subsided, replacing the claps with laughs.

While Smart had been the featured speaker at the event for the past several years, Golesh’s appearance brought out fans wearing orange and navy blue as the new leader of the Tigers bestowed some insights while also cracking a few jokes.

The former South Florida head coach, who accepted the job and moved to Auburn and the SEC at the end of last season, talked at length about culture and team-building, with an emphasis on how interesting the latter task has become in the transfer portal era of college athletics.

“Everybody says college football is crazy now, and in some ways it is. The one thing that hasn’t changed since I was a high school coach and a special ed teacher in Columbus, Ohio, is that young people still want to be held accountable, young people still want to be taught and young people want to be cared about and loved,” Golesh said. “That’s the piece that I keep going back to when I come to the building, is that we’re there because of the young people.”

While he acknowledged that he’s judged first and foremost on his ability to win games, Golesh said trust is the most important part of building a team — trust between players and coaches, players and other players and so on — and that the team’s character is the first step to getting those oh-so-coveted victories.

Part of building said trust is actually believing the words he preaches, Golesh said in one anecdote that got some chuckles.

“About three years ago I had a young man ask me … he said, ‘Coach, how do you know when things are up on a wall that that’s actually your core values, or if that’s just s— on a wall?’ It made me think. So many programs have core values, and pyramids of success, and pillars, and all these things. We truly have one motto, one saying, one quote,” Golesh said. “Ours is really simple. It’s ‘be who you say you are.’”

That applies to Golesh himself, too — and players are quick to remind him of it, especially during one recent practice where the head coach found himself getting upset.

“Two players run by and tap me on the butt. ‘Hey, Coach, be who you say you are,’” Golesh said. 

Then he added, with deft comedic timing: “I never said I wasn’t going to lose my mind, so …”

With everyone held accountable to the mantra, Golesh told the crowd — particularly notable for its sizable Auburn contingent — that the Tigers were even further ahead of where he thought they would be in terms of improvement ahead of next season.

“I would never tell them that, though,” Golesh said, again getting a few laughs from the audience.

Transfers have helped with that, as several players from USF entered the portal and eventually came to Auburn.