Heritage School turns over football program to Danny Cronic

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Heritage School turns over football program to Danny Cronic


Under first-year head coach Danny Cronic – kicks off the 2010 season against the Dawson Street Wildcats of LaGrange.


Cronic came out of retirement to take over the Heritage School program after heading up the East Coweta Indians from 1990 through 2007 and posting a 158-60 record with three region championships.

The long-time East Coweta football coach who stepped down two seasons ago after 18 years in Sharpsburg, has accepted the head coaching job at The Heritage School.

Otis Jones, Chairman of Heritage School's Board of Trustees, initiated contact with Cronic over the Christmas holidays and the deal was finalized Tuesday.

"I'm excited about it," Cronic said.

"It will be a different experience for me, a different challenge, but I'm looking forward to it and working with the people at Heritage."

Cronic, by far the most successful coach in East Coweta's football history, left the door open when he stepped down after the 2007 season, when he said he was "not ruling out coaching sometime in the future."

The future is now.

He replaces Larry Harrison who took the Hawks to the playoffs both seasons he was in charge of the program.

But the decision was apparently not an easy one for Cronic.

"I talked with Paul Baxter (his close friend who is pastor of the First Baptist Church in LaGrange). And he asked me if I like what I'm doing now?

"I said 'I'm playing a lot of golf and enjoying it.'

"Then he asked if playing golf was as fulfilling as coaching."

"And I had to say no."

Heritage will be Cronic's fifth head coaching job.

He started at Cherokee High School, followed by stints at LaGrange and Forsyth Central before moving to East Coweta in 1990.

He oversaw the Indians' progression from a Class AA school when he took the job to the Quad A and Five-A powerhouse it became under his leadership.

In his 18 years at ECHS the Indians never had a losing season, made the playoffs 16 times and reached the state semifinals once and the quarterfinals three times.

His 1983 LaGrange team played for the state championship.

"I was emotionally tired when I retired," he said.

"But my golf game was not getting any better and I've given up hopes of making the tour," he laughed.

"We're just extremely happy and excited to have coach Cronic," Jones said.

"He is a quality person and an outstanding coach and his experience and character will be an invaluable asset to our school.

"He realizes there's more to life than football and more to football than just blocking and tackling. We believe his dedication and hard work and discipline will have an extremely positive effect on our school and our students."

Heritage School athletic director Ron Rineer worked with Cronic when he was an assistant basketball coach at East Coweta.

"He did a tremendous job at East Coweta," Rineer said.

"Larry Harrison did an outstanding job for us, but we felt our program had grown to the point that we needed a fulltime person at the school.

"The opportunity arose for us and coach Cronic to get together and we felt hiring him would enable us to take the next step in developing our program.

"It's a real feather in our cap to get him. He has an unbelievable wealth of football knowledge.

"We believe that enthusiasm for our football program will be tremendous next fall.

"We're just extremely happy and excited about his coming to Heritage."

Cronic called the situation at Heritage School "perfect" because he and his family didn't have to move in order for him to take another coaching job.

His wife, Anne, is minister of music at Central Baptist Church in Newnan and that weighed heavily in his decision.

"We enjoy living here," he said. "It's home. We didn't want to move."

Source: The Newnan Times Herald