ATHENS – In 2004, David Perno led the University of Georgia baseball team to the first of his three College World Series appearances as UGA’s coach.
Now, 20 years later, Perno is still coaching in Athens, with a team ready to go deep in the postseason.
But this is a different arena for Perno than it was two decades ago.
He’s now at Clarke Central High School, coaching football instead of baseball and high school students instead of Division I athletes.
He has another team at the top of its game, with the Gladiators heading into Friday’s first-round playoff game versus Houston County. Clarke Central is 8-2 overall, with a perfect 6-0 region record. The Gladiators’ offense has cemented itself as one of the best in the state, averaging 45 points per game in region play.
Houston County, meanwhile, has allowed 52 points per game over its last two outings.
Clarke Central has had some great teams during Perno’s tenure, which began in 2016, but the Gladiators have not had an offense as explosive as this year’s. They rank first in their region in points scored and sit right outside the top 10 in class 5A statewide.
Senior quarterback Hezekiah Millender, a transfer student from Arizona and a Boise State commit, has totaled 37 touchdowns and only thrown one interception. Clarke Central also has two standout pass-catchers in La’Gracion Little and Xay Berry to go along with their star running back, Corey Watkins Jr., who has rushed for over 1,000 yards in two consecutive seasons.
Millender’s level of production combined with a talented roster elsewhere has brought the Gladiators to heights they previously had not reached under Perno.
“With Hezekiah, because that position is so critical in this game, he definitely gives us a chance every time out, regardless of who or where,” Perno said. “Now, I don’t think we’ve had any team quite like that. We’ve all been limited or short-handed in some capacity, and if our secondary continues to come, yeah, this could definitely be the most complete team without question.”
Whether in football or baseball, high school or college, Perno’s commitment to setting a winning culture has never wavered.
“He’s created a bond culture, like a family culture, makes sure we’re about our business, and then after business, we’re all just family, just everything we do is like as a family,” Millender said.
For a long-time baseball coach, there was plenty of adjusting that needed to be done over the years, all while still finding a way to win games and make the playoffs.
“I was much more in the day-to-day scheme of things, much more involved in every aspect of baseball,” Perno said. “When I got in football, it took me a little bit to get up scheme-wise, offensively, everything was moving.”
The Gladiators have missed the playoffs only one time (2023) under Perno.
When he took over in 2016, run-pass options were becoming one of the more popular offensive strategies in football. These plays allow the quarterback to decide whether to hand the ball off or to pull it back and throw it to one of his receivers. They can be tricky to stop, and Perno admitted it took him a bit to catch on to the new wrinkles of the game.
He credits his time with Georgia baseball as a major reason for his success at Clarke Central. However, the ability to make the transition from college to high school and baseball to football takes a special kind of coach.
“The way he treats people, his relationship-building, I think that’s huge,” Gladiators defensive coordinator Josh Dawson said. “Being a head coach, being a figure in the community, you got to be able to treat people the right way, and that’s something he does.”
Perno’s current players said they feel this as well. Perno has a special knack for knowing when to use certain coaching tactics, they said, and they appreciate his coaching style.
“A lot of times he’ll be coaching us, and he’ll say something funny,” junior defensive end Anthony Lonon Jr. said. “He’s not afraid to throw shots, but he’s also not afraid to lift somebody up in the same type of way.”
Millender and that explosive Gladiator offense will have the chance Friday to begin a playoff run that could lift Clarke Central to the kind of success Perno had with UGA baseball two decades ago.
The Gladiators are looking to make some history of their own, with the same coach, in a different sport.
Marco Bartkowiak is a student in the University of Georgia’s undergraduate Sports Media Certificate program.
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