PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) -There’s been some recent changes on the high school football front and one of those changes coming at Fort Walton Beach. That school earlier this month naming a new head coach. Last week we told you about Josh Pulliam being promoted to that post after coach Clayton moved to Catholic. Pulliam a Fort Walton Beach native, went to Choctaw, played college ball at Greensboro College. Then started a coaching career that’s had him first downstate, the back home to Choctaw and then over to Fort Walton Beach in 2019 where he’s been an assistant coach ever since. He takes over a program that won state titles in 91 and 95 with quarterbacks like Danny Wuerffel and the late Marcus Outzen. Lately though, tough times, 11-36 over a five-year span. So Josh knows he’s taking on a rebuilding project. ” Man such great tradition at this school and that’s my goal is to bring back all these things.” the coach told me during a recent Zoom call. “The importance of the rivalry we’ve got going on with our school across the way. And all the people that have just walked these hallways. They deserve to have a lot of pride And tradition and what’s been going on. Unfortunately, over the last handful of years it hasn’t been that way. And it’s my goal to just kind of instill that culture within the student athletes and our student body. Just understanding that you know I want the family atmosphere that this place deserves and what it used to have.”

And the coach is already working on delivering the right message to his players, and key among those messages he tells us is this. ” Really the big thing, I like to say, is pass the program off better than it was handed to you. For many years that went on and that happened. And we’ve kind of lost that a little bit. And it’s my goal to bring those things back. Within the position groups, within the coaching staff, within everybody in general. I want that great heartbeat of the school to understand how important it is for that. Because I do think that your schools, they thrive when your football program is having fun and discipline and getting after it. “

We will go more in depth with coach Pulliam in a future episode of 7+ Sports Talk, so watch for that.

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