Ex-Cummings coach David Grimm to be on the coaching staff
By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Fritz Hessenthaler, who was the subject of a controversial firing late in the 2023 season as Southern Alamance’s football coach, has another coaching assignment after his hiring as Orange’s coach was confirmed Monday night.
Hessenthaler has taken the Orange job after a year away from the sidelines.
“Back in action. [Hessenthaler said Tuesday morning.] I enjoy (coaching). I wanted to get back and be a head coach. . . Being forced out for a year kind of energized me. Probably, if anything, it started my fire a little stronger.”
– New Orange High School head football coach Fritz Hessenthaler
“Back in action,” Hessenthaler said Tuesday morning. “I enjoy (coaching). I wanted to get back and be a head coach … Being forced out for a year kind of energized me. Probably, if anything, it started my fire a little stronger.”
On board with Orange as an assistant coach will be David Grimm, who was dismissed less than two weeks ago as Cummings’ head coach.
See story on Grimm’s reaction to hiring in Orange: https://Former Cummings coach Grimm will join Hessenthaler
Hessenthaler also said that Southern defensive coordinator Will Robinson along with Southern assistant Eric Blackwell and longtime area assistant coach Danny Pope would join the Orange staff.
Orange athletics director Jason Knapp confirmed Hessenthaler’s hiring and said the new coach would make formal announcements about staff positions.
“We started a search,” Knapp said. “It was a thorough process. After the process played out, Coach Fritz was the clear choice.”
[Story continues below photos of coach and former coach Fritz Hessenthaler.]
There were more than two dozen applicants for the job, Knapp said.
Hessenthaler’s status within Alamance-Burlington School System included various developments during the last 19½ months.
Hessenthaler was suspended following the 2023 regular season and then, just hours before a Class 3-A state playoff game against visiting Orange, fired from the coaching position by then-ABSS superintendent Dain Butler. The Patriots were amid what’s considered the best season in school history.
The firing stemmed from an incident with a player on a non-game day. He allegedly grabbed a player by the shoulder in what was termed a motivational coaching tactic, something that the player said publicly didn’t bother him or harm him.
The dismissal as coach was met with outrage among many Southern supporters, who protested at ABSS offices and also flooded an ABSS school board meeting to express their disapproval.
Tony McCants, who had been McMichael’s coach, was hired to fill Southern’s vacancy. He stayed for one season, with the position open again earlier this year.
Hessenthaler, who upon his termination of coach was listed as ineligible to be reinstated as coach within ABSS, was one of the applicants. Supporters said his status had been changed to make him eligible for coaching positions.
He had advanced through a round of interviews and, based on numerous accounts from those tracking the job search, had been among four finalists. The job went to Jonathan Hester, who had been on Hessenthaler’s staff and remained an assistant coach for the 2024 season.
“Things tend to work out in one way, shape or form,” Hessenthaler said. “God works in mysterious ways. I can’t explain it. … I don’t overthink things. I focus on the goals in front of me.”
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Hessenthaler’s failed bid to return to the Southern coaching position had been likened, by one supporter, as a team driving 99 yards and then having the goal line moved.
“We’re just excited that Fritz is over here,” Knapp said. “What he brings to a football team speaks for itself.”
Under new conference alignments that begin with the 2025-26 school year, Orange is no longer in a conference with Alamance County schools. However, the Panthers open the football season with a non-league game August 22 at home against Southeast Alamance and play September 5 at Williams.
Orange had a vacancy following the April departure of Devante Pettiford, an alum of the school, after three seasons in the position. The Panthers had a 2-8 record in 2024, with their last winning season coming in 2017.
“It was interesting timing,” Knapp said of the vacancy.
Pettiford’s exit from Orange was announced as a resignation, though some Orange parents and former players were involved in a petition to have him reinstated.
With the 9-1 record in 2023 prior to his firing, Hessenthaler produced a 48-18 record in six seasons at Southern. That put his 16-year overall record as a head coach at 120-67.
Southern won three playoff games in 2023, finishing with a 12-2 record. Hessenthaler was named that year’s Coach of the Year in the Central 3-A Conference, which was won by the Patriots.
Hessenthaler also was a social studies teacher at Southern. He was placed on leave with pay from his Southern assignments upon his firing as coach.
He was later reassigned to Alamance Virtual School and then held a teaching position during the past year at Southeast Alamance.
Hessenthaler had been employed by ABSS from August 1999 to April 2003 as a teacher and assistant coach and then hired again in 2018. He was Southeast Guilford’s head coach and a Providence Grove assistant coach in between the jobs within ABSS.
