By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
The new arrivals for the football staff at Orange also translate as a partial exodus from Southern Alamance.
It’s not only former Southern coach Fritz Hessenthaler, a man hired this week as Orange’s coach, who will be traveling east to work with a new team.
Longtime Southern assistant coaches Will Robinson, Eric Blackwell, and Danny Pope have joined the Orange program. They’ve marked their allegiance to Hessenthaler, whose controversial 2023 in-season firing from the Southern post continues to have an impact on coaching personnel in Alamance County.
Blackwell, a member of Southern’s Athletics Hall of Fame as a former standout athlete, had been involved with the school’s football staff for more than two decades, beginning under Tony Perrou.
“It was a pretty easy decision to make,” Blackwell said of latching on with Hessenthaler again. “The main reason was the dedication to him because I know what he stands for.”
Robinson spent 13 seasons at Southern, including as defensive coordinator since 2018.
“I live less than five minutes down the road from Southern,” Robinson said. “It was family and like a second home to me. So it speaks to how much I think of Fritz.”
Hessenthaler and Robinson were both applicants for the vacant Southern coaching position earlier this year. Southern assistant coach Jonathan Hester was named the coach.
Robinson, 38, said he didn’t receive a second interview for the Southern position. With this development regarding Orange a couple of months later, it made sense to him to follow Hessenthaler.
“For me, it was time for a change,” Robinson said. “It was time for me to grow and expand and to experience something different.”
Robinson was also the girls’ basketball coach at Southern. He held various basketball coaching roles for boys’ and girls’ teams for most of his time at the school, where he has been a history teacher. He’s unsure of his teaching assignment at Orange.
Blackwell, a 2001 Southern graduate and four-sport athlete for the school, was defensive backs coach for the Patriots. He didn’t otherwise work at the school as he’s involved in trucking with Superior Logistics.
Blackwell’s four years as a football player coincided with Hessenthaler’s first stint with the Patriots as an assistant coach. Blackwell said the bonds formed during that time never loosened.
Pope was a staple on Southern staffs for years before retiring from the school and spending time with Williams and Eastern Alamance teams before returning to assist at Southern. He said has been working part-time for the Burlington Recreation and Parks Department and was intrigued about helping Hessenthaler in this newest endeavor.
Pope said he expects a strong staff in place.
“Coach Fritz can get coaches,” he said.
Recently fired Cummings coach David Grimm also was among the first to be hired to Hessenthaler’s Orange staff.
Orange athletics director Jason Knapp, a former Williams baseball coach and assistant football coach, said he’s familiar with many of the new assistant coaches from his time on opposite sidelines.
“I’m thrilled with the new staff that he has brought in and the guys he has retained,” Knapp said. “We have brought the best in for Orange High School.”
The Orange staff will have at least three holdovers with Eric Stephens, Steve Hopkins, and Anthony Cecil as assistant coaches.
