Cassity sees potential in Hornets football program

Todd Cassity has always kept tabs on the Chelsea High School football program.

Cassity’s wife works in the Shelby County Schools and has had several friends coach at Chelsea throughout the years, including Dustin Goodwin, who was the head coach at Chelsea for the last four seasons.

Cassity will now join that list, as he was approved as the new Chelsea head football coach in April. He takes over for Goodwin, who left to take a position at Thompson High.

He believes the Chelsea program has long had “a lot of potential.”

“I thought it was a great opportunity to apply,” Cassity said. “I got here and met with (Principal) Dr. (Brandon) Turner and felt like it was a great fit for me, my family and the school.”

Cassity spent the last seven years at J.B. Pennington, turning around a moribund program. Before his arrival, Pennington had won a total of nine games over five years. After a 2-8 season in his first campaign, Cassity led Pennington to the state playoffs six consecutive years, including a nine-win season and two eight-win campaigns.

“It was a great place,” he said.

Cassity started his coaching career at Maplesville before heading to Demopolis, where his teams reached the semifinals twice and won a state championship in three years as an assistant coach. He was the head coach at Gordo from 2005-06, taking that program to the playoffs both years as well.

In 2007, he moved to Pleasant Grove, where he served as Jim Elgin’s offensive coordinator for eight years.

Over the years, Cassity said his coaching philosophies have evolved on and off the field.

“My job is more to build guys of high character and to worry about them more from a personal standpoint than a football standpoint. That is what has really been laid on me to do that better, to develop really good young men. If you do that, eventually those wins and losses are going to take care of themselves,” he said.

On the field, Cassity wants his team to be the aggressor on the line of scrimmage.

“We want a football team that’s going to be very physical up front,” he said. “The way I’ve always started out, we’re going to be very physical in the run game. However we have to do that, we’ll do it.”

Chelsea has not had a winning season since 2016, but qualified for the state playoffs twice under Goodwin. Last fall, the Hornets rallied from an 0-4 start to win four straight games, which was enough to get them into the postseason in a tough region.

Making matters more difficult is Chelsea’s ascension to Class 7A in the upcoming school year, meaning the Hornets will now be tasked with competing in Region 3, arguably the toughest in any classification throughout the state. The region features three-time defending state champ Thompson, Hoover and other stout programs in the Birmingham metro area.

Cassity won’t use that or anything else as an excuse, though. He estimated around 110 eighth through 11th graders have been working in the program in his first few weeks on the job, and expects to build a winner at Chelsea.

“I love what we’ve been working with,” He said. “We’ve got some good pieces here. We’ve got to develop our own identity and that’s the biggest thing.”