For a few minutes, it was humbling to see Matt Rahl choked up, wiping a tear, when he was introduced on Jan. 5 as the 18th Head Coach of the Presbyterian College Football team. He knew he had a job to do, and he got back to it. But just for a minute, you could tell, this moment meant a lot to him.
An assistant for 20 years, Rahl gets the chance to lead a team that went 10-2 this past season because the coach for the past four seasons, Steve Englehart, moved on to West Georgia. Englehart did not have a role in picking the coach who would come after him, other than to tell Athletics Director Dee Nichols that “the players like him” speaking about Rahl.
And, what’s not to like? For one thing, Presbyterian now has a head coach that can out-bench-press every other football head coach in the Pioneer Football League (Rahl is an offensive line coach, so he knows a little something about bench-pressing). For another, you know he respects the PC Tradition - he told Bob and Betty Strock seated on the front row in front of him, “I look forward to your hugs on Monday when you lie and tell me I’m your favorite coach.” For another, he was open, honest and authentic enough to tell us that when he and his wife Carrie had their first date, at the Red Onion Cafe in Joplin, Missouri, that the staff had to about run them out of the place because they had been talking so long - it was then and there that Matt told Carrie, “One day, I’m going to be a Head Coach.”
She was sitting right there, with their three children, in the Mabry Smith Yonce Center of Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, when that statement came true.
These are the kinds of moments when he know that Football binds us.
It is a violent, tough sport - as Laurens Academy Headmaster Todd Kirk says, “If football is not hard, you’re not doing it right” - yet it can open itself to authentic, human moments. Coach after coach at the Laurens County Touchdown Club have told us the great thing about the game is the relationships along the way. They have urged the young men selected by their coaches to attend the every-other-Thursday luncheons to keep themselves open to those relationships - don’t burn your bridges. That would seem to be increasingly difficult in these days of the transfer portal.
The Touchdown Club gave us another lesson in relationships last Wednesday evening when it staged its annual awards dinner. South Carolina State legend Buddy Pough made the guest presentation, fresh off one of the Bulldogs’ most successful campaigns in recent history. With Newberry College’s 12-2 season and Presbyterian College’s 10-2 season, it seems that Football below the “top tier” is alive and thriving in the Palmetto State. And, why not? Our high school coaches are some of the best in the country, and our communities invest in the infrastructure needed to have successful programs. We’re not Texas, with their multi-million-dollar HIGH SCHOOL stadia, but neither do we want to be.
Football can bring heartache, to be sure - just ask Illinois State, the Cinderella of this season’s FCS playoffs which fell by 1 point in overtime to Montana State in last Monday night’s championship game (attendance in Nashville, 24,105, the 7th largest crowd in the title game’s 48-year history, and the 2025 23-game series attendance of 252,870, 2nd highest of the 24-team playoff era, since 2013). And, the game needs to be safer, without “bubble-wrapping” the players; and strides are being made in that regard from uniform upgrades to better training for the people who keep the players well.
Players themselves bear much of that responsibility. At the highest levels of Football, the player’s body is the money-making machine, and there are constant discoveries being made in terms of sleep and recovery and conditioning. These cannot help but make their way down into college and high school programs, and once they do, these player-development techniques should be taught to youth league coaches, as well.
Football is not a life-long sport, like golf or tennis, because at some point your body is going to break down and not allow for the skills that lead to success. But it is a sport that can be watched and enjoyed life-long; it is a sport that can bind a community - as it binds our community, Clinton and Laurens root for each other except for one game out the season, success at Laurens Academy’s Kirk Field and ringing the bell at Thornwell Charter School is something we can all celebrate. And, watch out for flag-football, it’s becoming more popular than ever - less hitting but when that runner breaks away still just as exciting. Or, if it’s not your team’s player breaking away, just as heart-breaking.
