By CHRIS HOBBS
HobbsDailyReport.com
MINOR
ICARD – East Burke High said Tuesday morning it has hired former Fred T. Foard head football coach Derrick Minor as its varsity football head coach.
The decision was announced via a press release from Burke County Public Schools.
School boards approve teaching contracts and coaches are assigned by school principals. Katie Moore is principal at East Burke.
Minor was head coach at Foard for three seasons, starting in 2016, and the Tigers’ records were 3-8, 9-4 and 6-6 with his 2017 and 2018 teams reaching the state 2A playoffs.
He resigned after the 2018 season and did not coach last season while teaching at Oak Hill Elementary.
The Cavs went 2-9 last season overall and 1-6 in the Northwestern Foothills 2A, tying for seventh place in Mark Buffamoyer’s third season as head coach.
East Burke went 5-28 under Buffaymoyer and has had a losing record in eight of the previous nine seasons.
Minor’s coaching career includes working as an assistant at Graham (2005-2009), Southern Alamance (2009-2010) and Southeast Guilford (2010-2012).
His first head-coaching job was at Princeton (2012-2015), and he was head coach at Rockingham (2015-2016) before coming to Fred T. Foard, where he replaced Tom Harper. His career record is 49-38.
Minor is the 10th varsity head football coach in East Burke’s history and the eighth since Wayne Fletcher resigned in 1994 after 11 years as head coach.
His most successful season was at Foard in 2017, a 9-4 team that finished third in the Northwestern Foothills 2A. That team helped the Tigers post their first back-to-back non-losing seasons since 1982 and 1983 and it gave Foard its first state playoff victory (over Maiden) since the 1982 season.
HobbsDailyReport.com will update this story as needed