Alan Dell commentary: Ray Woodie and Mike Hobbie showed Bayshore football can be a good job for the right person

Southeast and Bayshore each need a head football coach.

We know which way the wind is blowing, but looks might be deceiving.

Rightly so, Southeast is perceived as the better job, but Bayshore is not as bad as it seems and could be a stepping-stone.

Mike Hobbie and Ray Woodie, the last two successful head football coaches at Bayshore, went on to become major college football assistants.

Hobbie coached Bayshore from 1993-96 and took the Bruins football program to its first postseason playoff.

After one year as USF tight ends coach he coached a year at Tampa Gaither and Sarasota High before returning to USF as its offensive coordinator, where he put up scintillating numbers with Marquel Blackwell at quarterback.

He eventually resigned and moved to California to spend time with his family, where he was a successful high school football coach again.

Hobbie had an uncanny knack for his ability to turn programs around and was an offensive innovator. He took over a Roosevelt High (Fresno, Calif.) program that was 0-10 in 2006 and went 26-19 with winning seasons in his last three years.

Woodie followed Hobbie at Bayshore and did an even better job.

Woodie coached Bayshore to its best single season record in school history (10-2) and only district title in 2003. In nine years as the Bruins' head coach he took the team to the playoffs five times. In 1998 they won their only Manatee County championship, beating Manatee, Southeast and Palmetto.

Woodie is now assistant head coach at USF, where he is special teams coordinator, linebackers coach and the top recruiter for

head coach Willie Taggart,

Bayshore's biggest problem now is getting players for its football program. Woodie's greatest strength was that kids wanted to play for him. He had 130-plus players in the program (varsity, JV and freshman). Now the varsity is lucky to have 30.

Under his watch at Bayshore, 36 players received college football scholarships, including six at the I-A level. HIs two prized players were Fabian Washington, a first-round NFL draft pick, and quarterback SirDarean Adams, who played at Michigan State.

Things went bad at Bayshore after the Woodie-Hobbie era, and the program has never recovered.

The program doesn't need to change classes or become an independent. It needs to find the right guy to lead it.

Coaching football at Bayshore is a tough job and not for everyone. It takes someone with a special skill set to be successful. They need to be strong in Xs and Os and have a personality that attracts kids who want to play for them. He needs to gain the trust of the players and get them to believe in him.

State of transition

Though Southeast is a storied program, it is in a transitional state after Hall of Fame coach Paul Maechtle resigned following the 2013 season.

It also needs a guy who kids will want to play for and might even transfer to Southeast because of the opportunity. John Warren resigned after two seasons, going 1-9 in his frist season and then 5-6 this past season, when the Seminoles made the playoffs and appeared to be on the upswing.

That's why the next hire is so important and you would think it is best to at least hire at least a Florida guy who is not likely to leave. Getting a former Southeast player sure wouldn't hurt.

Brett Timmons and Rashad West are former high school head coaches who did not coach last season, and both played at Southeast.

Timmons, a linebacker, played on Southeast's two state championship teams and was a member of Tulane's undefeated season in 1998. He was head football coach and athletic director at Out-Of-Door-Academy for nine years before resigning following the 2014 season.

West, who was Southeast's starting quarterback in 1995 and 1996, is a former 2014 Broward County coach of the year for the job he did at Coral Springs.

This story was originally published January 15, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Alan Dell commentary: Ray Woodie and Mike Hobbie showed Bayshore football can be a good job for the right person ."