Lamar Waters was named interim head football coach and athletic director at Union County High School on June 2, stepping in for Andrew Thomas, who was relieved of his duties on May 29.
Waters, who returned to the Union County School District after coaching and serving as athletic director in Williston, is no stranger. His family lived in Lake Butler before moving to Dunnellon, where Waters attended middle school and high school. Waters, who was a part of Robby Pruitt’s football staff at UCHS in the 1990s, has held multiple coaching positions in Union, including head coach of the Lake Butler Middle School football team and head coach of the UCHS baseball team.
“He has been part of multiple successful programs and has served as athletic director in other districts,” Union Superintendent of Schools Mike Ripplinger said via a statement emailed to the Telegraph-Times-Monitor. “Throughout his career, Coach Waters has spent many years in Union County and has developed many relationships over the years that will assist the program.”
Waters, who graduated from Dunnellon High School and the University of Florida, had short coaching stints in Dunnellon and Hawthorne before joining Pruitt’s staff at UCHS. He later joined the staff of Bradford High School Head Football Coach Rowland Cummings, whom Waters coached alongside at UCHS. While at BHS, Waters also coached baseball as an assistant and served as head coach on three separate occasions following the resignation of other coaches.
He returned to Union, where he helped coach baseball and football at UCHS and served as head coach of the middle school football team. Waters was the UCHS head baseball coach for three seasons and also briefly filled in as athletic director during Head Football Coach Ronny Pruitt’s life-threatening illness in 2016.
A return to Bradford saw Waters fill the role of athletic director as well as helping to coach football.
Waters coached alongside Robby Pruitt again when Pruitt, after coaching for 20-plus years in Georgia, returned to Florida to take the head job at Williston in 2022.
The announcement of Waters as interim coach occurred the same day that all five assistant coaches from the 2024 season resigned. Scott McDaniel, Kyle Presnick, Riley Reed, Craig Slocum and Travis Smith all posted statements via their Facebook accounts, citing they disagreed with Ripplinger’s decision to fire Thomas.
“Today, with a heavy heart as a staff, we decided to take a stand for what is right and wrong and step aside from coaching football at UCHS,” Reed wrote.
Slocum wrote, “I didn’t like the way things were done and feel like things could have been handled differently.”
“I am unwilling to support a decision by county administrators that I felt was unwarranted and unfair,” McDaniel wrote. “My passion for coaching and my desire to help guide the young men in this program made this the most gut-wrenching decision of my career. My heart hurts, but wrong is wrong.”
Presnick wrote of the “very hard decision” and stressed that “I did not quit on the kids.”
“I am fighting for the kids because I do not believe that the direction that was taken for the program was the right one.”
Smith’s statement echoed the same sentiments.
“No, I am not quitting on the kids, but I did not agree with the direction the program was being pushed,” Smith wrote. “If I stayed on, I would be condoning the actions of our administration, which I will not do.”
Despite the situation, Reed expressed how much he has enjoyed coaching in Union.
“For five years, I’ve poured my heart and soul into this community,” Reed wrote. “This community has been nothing but amazing to me. These kids I’ve coached have changed my life, and hopefully I’ve made half an impact on them as they have on me. I have nothing but amazing things to say about this place. Sometimes God works in funny ways. While I may not agree with what is happening, I would not change the time I’ve spent here.”
Most of the coaches expressed that they’ll always love Union County and will always be Tigers.
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