Manatee taps Yusuf Shakir as new head football coach

Manatee High announced its fourth head football coach since 1981 on Thursday.

Former Tallahassee Lincoln head coach Yusuf Shakir was named the program’s first African-American head coach nearly a week after the Hurricanes completed their spring under the departing John Booth.

Shakir spent the past eight seasons in Tallahassee, where he helped maintain Lincoln’s status as a potential power. He took over as the Trojans’ head coach in 2009 after Lincoln reached the state championship game in 2008.

That first season saw Shakir face a brief suspension stemming from a driving under the influence arrest in Leon County. That charge was later reduced to reckless driving.

In his second season with the Trojans, Shakir led Lincoln to the 2010 state championship. He also led the Trojans to a runner-up finish in 2012.

Shakir has experience coaching in the Tampa Bay area. He spent two years as head coach at St. Petersburg Gibbs between an assistant coaching stint at Lincoln and taking over as the Trojans’ head coach.

Shakir resigned as Lincoln’s head coach in March. The Tallahassee Democrat reported he was pursuing other opportunities.

Before leading Lincoln to a state championship as a head coach, he was an assistant coach on the Trojans’ 2001 state-title winning team and even longer before he was a standout linebacker for Lincoln, graduating in 1996 before going on to a playing career at Wisconsin and Western Illinois. He left the Trojans with a 68-31 record as head coach. Lincoln has won 18 consecutive district titles, although the Trojans failed to win more than six games in either of Shakir’s final two seasons as head coach.

Lincoln last met Manatee in 2015, with the Trojans beating the Hurricanes, 24-21, in Bradenton to end Manatee’s 30-game home winning streak.

Booth became the head coach in July 2014 following Joe Kinnan’s sudden departure. Booth, who played for Kinnan before joining the high school coaching ranks at Valrico Bloomingdale after playing pro football, beat out six other finalists, including assistants on Kinnan’s staff that year.

Booth’s three seasons resulted in three playoff appearances, highlighted by a trip to the state semifinals in his first season leading the Canes.

Last fall, Manatee made the playoffs but was bounced in the first round for the first time since 2003 and didn’t win a district title for the first time since 2009.

The offseason saw a change in defensive coordinators as Chad Choate left in December. Former Sarasota Booker head coach and Manatee assistant Johnnie Jones was named Choate’s replacement in March.

Booth and his twin brother, James, resigned a month later, just weeks before spring practices started.

James left to become Plant City High’s head coach, while John stayed on through Friday’s spring game at Lakeland Lake Gibson.

The Hurricanes fell 23-21 against last year’s Class 6A state runner-up.

Booth’s departure opened up a national search for the second time in three years. There were nearly 130 applicants, including Cardinal Mooney head coach Drew Lascari, who withdrew his name from consideration, before Shakir was chosen.

Shakir is taking over a program that qualified for the playoffs in all three of Booth’s seasons. But expectations are high at Manatee, and the Canes tallied the lowest win total since 2008 last fall. The program rose to state power status under Kinnan, who returned to his alma mater in 1981 and won 291 games during his 29 seasons.

Kinnan stepped away from his first tenure after the 2000 season, which saw Howie DeCristofaro produce a tumultuous four seasons.

Kinnan, who recovered from a health scare that chased him away the first time, returned to lead Manatee for a second stint starting in 2005.

The Canes’ form on the field returned, too. They reeled off deep playoff runs from 2009-12 and captured the program’s fifth state championship in 2011. That led to Manatee holding the No. 1 ranking in the nation for most of the 2012 season behind quarterback Cord Sandberg and a stingy defense with Derrick Calloway (South Florida/junior college), Demarcus Christmas (Florida State), Blake Keller (Marshall) and Marquis Dawsey (Ferris State) up front.

That successful rise to national prominence dipped amid a scandal involving former assistant coach Rod Frazier, who came under investigation for alleged improper conduct with female students in 2012.

Kinnan has an ongoing lawsuit with the school board, former superintendent Rick Mills and former school board investigator Troy Pumphrey that alleges the two, in conjunction with the school board, sought to defame Kinnan’s reputation.

Kinnan parted with the program in June 2014, and then-athletic director Jason Montgomery, who currently is the county’s athletic director, conducted a national search.

That search led to Booth, who resigned three years into his tenure citing financial reasons for his family.

His wife gave birth to their fourth child last December.

For more on this story, check back on Bradenton.com and read Friday’s edition of the Bradenton Herald.

This story was originally published May 25, 2017 at 12:55 PM with the headline "Manatee taps Yusuf Shakir as new head football coach."