Ricky Woods Declines Eupora Opportunity, Accepts Head Coaching Job at South Panola

BATESVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) — Two weeks after he was expected to return home, a football coaching legend will now return to a different former home.

Ricky Woods has accepted the opening head coaching job with South Panola High School’s football program on Thursday. The Panolian was the first to report this news.

WCBI confirmed two weeks ago that Woods resigned as head football coach at Starkville High and was expected to be named the new head football coach at Eupora.

The Webster County School Board met on this issue on November 18th in a special meeting and elected to table the discussion and recommendation for Ricky Woods to be the Eagles’ new head football coach.

Over the last two weeks, the school board and those in Webster County have been unable to come to a decision on Woods joining Eupora and a source confirms to WCBI that there was no job to offer Woods to begin with.

According to multiple sources, Woods began losing interest in returning to Eupora as the school’s head coach over the last week after the school board could not come to a decision on the job and Eupora’s current head coach, Stephen Edwards.

Eupora’s official Twitter account issued this statement Thursday afternoon regarding the status of their head coach.
 

Coach Edwards is, and will remain, our head football coach. We appreciate what he has done for our program and are excited about the future

— Eupora High School (@EuporaEagles) December 1, 2016

WCBI first reported last night (November 30th) that Woods had informed Eupora that he will not pursue a job with the school and the next day, Woods accepted a substantial offer at his former school, South Panola.

“I don’t know about going 74-1 again but I felt compelled to come back and we are going to give it a whirl,” Woods told the Clarion-Ledger’s Will Sammon. “It’s the community. It has been so good here to me. We left a lot of goods friends here and I am excited to come back.”

According to sources, Woods was offered a substantial deal at South Panola following his resignation from Starkville and declined their initial offer. He returns to coach the Tigers after being at South Panola from 2002-2006, winning four State Championships in Batesville.