Caldwell County grad Tony Franklin has spent the last five years as offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee. (MTSU Athletics Photo)
Caldwell County grad Tony Franklin, a former offensive coordinator at the University of Kentucky, has announced that he is retiring from football coaching.
Franklin has spent the last five years as the offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee State University.
According to the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Franklin had his contract amended in 2018 and was set to make over $300,000 through 2023, making him one of the highest-paid Group of Five coordinators in the country. His final season in 2022-2023 had Franklin making $350,0000.
“I want to thank Tony for his contributions to our football program over the last five years,” Blue Raider head coach Rick Stockstill said on social media on Saturday. “I wish him and his family the very best.”
Franklin also had college coaching stops at Troy, Auburn, Louisiana Tech and California.
Franklin announced his retirement in a lengthy post on his Facebook page:
It started in the backyard…just me, my dad, and my brother, and an oblong pigskin. We played simple games of pitch and catch before escalating into full scale tackle football on the gravel playgrounds at East Side Elementary School. I don’t remember ever loving this game. I do remember loving my team-mates in the 12 years I played organized football and loving and respecting the young boys and men I would coach for 40 seasons.
Football is not a contact sport. It’s a violent game. If played the way it must be played to maximize success, you must mentally and physically condition a group of young boys, or men, to have little to no regards for their health, or the health of their opponents. You must swarm to the football and destroy everything on your pathway to reach it.
Over the years I have been both the destroyer and the “destroyee” as a player and as a coach. I’ve witnessed and partaken in the splattering of brain cells and the breaking of bones. And on November 21, 2020 at the ripe young age of 63, I ended this violent experiment in an unexpected final game of the 2020 season at Troy University. It is time to discover what I want to do when I grow up.
I’m not a “big-name” coach, though I’ve had my share of recognizable successes. I’ve been labeled an innovative offensive guru, as well as an epic failure. I’ve won championships and I’ve gone 1-11. I’ve been paid more money than anyone should be paid for coaching a game that some men would do for free. Most of my peers in my profession would recognize my name well enough to have a strong opinion as to whether I was worthy of accolades, hatred, or indifference.
From 1981-1982 and from 1993-1995 I coached high school and middle school football with men who would form my football soul as a coach. Billy Mitchell was the football savant, Bill Taylor was the charismatic tough and loving guy, and Steve Aull was the quarterback guru with an entrepreneurial background. Joe and David Morris were the sons of a legend who would embrace me and make me part of a family I hadn’t earned the right to be associated with. And Paul Leahy would publicly and privately praise me to the point where I thought maybe I belonged in the discussions of being referred to as a “good coach”. These men made me fall in love with coaching because of a camaraderie and brotherhood that was rare. They spoiled me. We coached, drank, gambled, and worked as brothers who loved each other enough to always tell the truth. I’d discover over the next 39 years how unusual this camaraderie was. I never found it in college football or in any other phase of life outside of my relationships with my brother and two close coaching comrades and former team-mates, Bruce Raley and David Barnes.
Franklin touched on several other college football subjects in his post before finishing…
Thank you, football, but most of all thank you to the young men who gave me a 40-year football life full of competition, love, respect, friendships, and satisfaction. I can never repay you for this amazing journey you allowed me to live with you. I never loved this game, but I loved, respected, and cherished the young men courageous, talented, and empathetic enough to play it.
Coach Tony Franklin
PS- To those who wonder if I will continue my war on the cowards of the college football world who have shown horrendous leadership in our greatest time of need, you need not wonder. That fight has just begun. Stay tuned.
