It has been a long road at Ringgold high school for former head football coach, Robert Akins who announced on Monday that he would be retiring as a football coach.
In doing so, he leaves behind a legacy that spanned 16 years with the Tigers and altogether he'll be saying goodbye to four decades coaching football.
Akins will be stepping away to take over as the head of schools at Fayette Academy located in Somerville, TN which is just east of the city of Memphis. This move also allows him to be closer to the part of Mississippi where he grew up in the northwest part of the state.
During his 16-year run as the head coach at Ringgold high, he accumulated a 97-75 record, and leaves the Tigers program as the second-winningest head football coach in program history only trailing Don Patterson. Over his 44-year career as a high school football coach his final leger reads 255-185 at four different schools.
He began his coaching career in 1980 with five seasons at Mobile Christian and then he continued onto Harding Academy for nine seasons before getting a big opportunity at Boyd Buchannan for 10 years where he won a TSSAA State Title back in 2003.
This past season, the Tigers went 7-4 and were knocked off by Carver in the first-round of the GHSA playoffs.
"I never anticipated last year being my last year." Akins said, "I didn't know until a couple of weeks ago."
Now, what's one of the greatest aspects to being a coach? Akins shared with us, it's all about the relationships that you cultivate and that's what he'll miss the most...
"Relationships with players and coaches and being able to influence kids directly."
We wish coach Akins all the best with his newest endeavor.