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FERRIDAY — Ferriday High School named Cleothis Cummings its next football head coach. He coached previously with the Trojans starting in 2003 as a student coach. 

From 2012 to 2014, Cummings served as the head coach leading the program to an 11-21 record. Cummings was let go from Ferriday High School in 2015 after failing to be certified as a head coach as required by LHSAA Guidelines. 

He is certified as a PE teacher and will teach history at the school. Additionally, he is returning to his alma mater.

“It is a privilege to be the head coach at your alma mater. You always want to take pride in what you do,” Cummings said. “You have to humble yourself and make sure you do everything possible to better these kids. It is part of being a player and a coach. You have a lot of responsibility. We have to put in the work to get the results.” 

Ferriday had to hire a new coach after Stanley Smith resigned in January. Smith said he was wanting to “move the program forward and it never happened.” Smith won a state championship with Ferriday in 2019 

COVID hampered the Trojans season last summer as the squad missed a month of practice due to four weeks of quarantine. The missed development time showed in the young players. They beat Vidalia and Madison Parish to go 2-7. 

Cummings will look to start working immediately on building a solid foundation. 

“They have to understand the importance of being a good teammate and being accountable,” Cummings said. “We are implementing techniques and there is not a whole lot more we can focus on in the spring. We want to give them the basic foundation. It is kind of early so we want to see where the kids are and how we can use them scheme wise. Personally, I like to run the spread and I-formation and defensively we will be looking at 4-3 or 4-2-5.” 

Cummings is working on putting together a staff. He said SaMel Washington is the only coach returning from last season. 

His coaching job sidelines another hobby of his, barbering. 

“Barbering is something I have always had as a hobby. I’m focused on football now,” Cummings said. “I’ve taken care of a lot of the kids in the area, especially the ones here. I was able to be a barber in the past as an assistant. Now I’m focused on getting everything on track and putting barbering to the back burner so we can get better as a program.”