By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Former Western Alamance athlete Darius Pinnix Jr. is the new football coach at Cummings.
“I always wanted to be a head coach,” Pinnix said. “I didn’t know it would come this soon. I saw the opportunity and took off with it.”
Pinnix, 26, becomes the third man in charge of the Cummings program in less than a 10-month period.
Pinnix spent the past two years as running backs coach at Gardner-Webb prior to a December coaching change in Boiling Springs. The Cummings job marks his first coaching assignment on the high school level.
“I’m not just (in charge of) one position,” he said. “I’ll be involved with offense and defense, trying to build a culture.”
Pinnix said he has family members who attended Cummings. His personal connection to the campus is associated with some of his earliest football memories.
He said he was part of the Air Cavs youth program and those games were held at Cummings.
Pinnix said he should be able to relate to Cummings players who’ll have a mix of matchups against other Alamance County teams.
“I was in their shoes coming out of middle school and in high school,” he said.
Pinnix said he expects to have a daytime job assignment at Cummings, something that’s still being worked out.
“I want to be around these kids as much as possible,” he said. “It’s a super, great opportunity. It will be good to really get to know everybody.”
Pinnix, a 2017 Western graduate, was a standout running back for the Warriors. He also was a basketball and track and field athlete at Western.
He then spent four seasons in East Carolina’s football program before using two final seasons of eligibility at Division II Tiffin in Ohio. He served on the Tiffin coaching staff in 2023 before becoming an assistant coach at Gardner-Webb for two seasons.
Terrance Alford became the Cummings interim coach in June a few weeks after David Grimm was fired in late May. The Cavaliers went 3-8 in 2025.
Alford, a former Cummings player and assistant coach, applied for the permanent position but wasn’t given an offer. He said he expects to coach as an assistant at another school in 2026.
