Oconee County’s Travis Noland looks to leave his mark on the 2020 football season in multiple ways

This piece was written in collaboration with the Grady Sports Media Program at the University of Georgia. Click here to see the full article published by The Oconee Enterprise.

Julie Noland has a front-row seat to one of the most stressful jobs in Georgia high school football. Her husband, Travis, is attempting to coach Oconee County to a second consecutive state championship game and the Warriors’ first state title since 1999. 

Not only is Noland leading an undefeated football team, he is also the third-year president of the Georgia Football Coaches Association, which has been no small task this season.

“I need a set of headsets to help coach on Friday night,” Julie Noland joked, “but I haven’t had that offer yet.” 

The Warriors finished the regular season 8-0 and beat Westminster 21-7 in a first-round playoff game before toppling Dawson County 42-7 last week. 

Noland is in his 27th season as a high school coach, and his seventh as head coach at Oconee County. Coming off a deep playoff run last season, which ended when the Warriors fell to the Blessed Trinity Titans 17-14, COVID-19 has added steps to Noland’s process to reach a state title. 

“It’s hard enough to just prepare for a game and deal with those emotions, but when you’re having to deal with the emotion of uncertainty, which is one of the most powerful emotions, it makes it tougher for everyone involved,” Noland said.

Every week, Warrior Stadium and Oconee County’s football facilities are fogged, and they are sanitized daily. With players following socially distanced guides on the floor and field, they maintain their 6-feet-apart protocol and wipe down equipment and weight room machinery constantly. Every player has his own individual water bottle, and Noland and his coaching staff are strict on wearing masks in all facilities. 

Additionally, like all coaches, Noland has had to manage the possibility of postponed or canceled games when communicating with opponents throughout the week. The team’s last regular season game, against Franklin County, was canceled due to COVID-19 protocols. 

While some coaches might be struggling with the adjustments, Noland has taken an alternative approach with his mindset that “one man’s misery is another man’s opportunity.” 

To Noland, that philosophy goes beyond a player simply stepping up and contributing to the team when another goes down with injury. Though other teams have had key players sidelined due to positive COVID-19 tests, Noland’s team has remained relatively healthy and taken advantage of a season where many other teams have opted to look toward next season. 

“When somebody goes down, we look at it here like it’s the next guy up and a great opportunity for that guy,” Noland said. “Whether we win or lose, it’s not going to determine who we are in Week 9 and 10, but if it can help us develop depth that will help us down the road, it can be a really good thing for us.”  

Noland spends his time as GFCA president having brief conversations with coaches across the state. Most offer updates on how their programs are holding up in their area.

“He’s just very steady,” Josh Alexander, Athens Academy’s head football coach and a GFCA vice president, said of Noland. “Just watching him work and the way he coaches his team, the way he goes about his business and the way he carries himself, it’s fun to watch and learn from him.”  

Over the summer, as schools were preparing for a season that could be dissolved in a matter of minutes, Noland was meeting with the GFCA members at least three times a month via Zoom, giving suggestions and guiding coaches on what to expect in the fall. Without having their regularly scheduled summer football conditioning programs, coaches from around the state continually reached out to Noland, in desperate search of direction. 

“There were just so many meetings,” Julie Noland said.

Along with weekly GFCA meetings, Noland and other members were in constant communication with the Georgia High School Association, the governing body in charge of all athletic decisions for high school sports. 

Kevin Giddens, GHSA associate director, communicated with Noland and the GFCA throughout the summer with weekly emails explaining any kind of changes or new information to keep coaches informed and up to date. 

Giddens also relayed to Noland and the other coaches what changes the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee implemented every month to ensure the health and safety of student-athletes. 

“We talked about everything,” said Giddens. “We talked about possible guidelines to be put in place; we talked about different scenarios of how the season may play out, just to go over all the different possibilities, so Travis [Noland] and I have had some good communication with that group.” 

Noland is appreciative of the role he’s been able to play in Georgia high school football this season. 

“I don’t look at that association president as a burden in any way; it’s more of an honor and a privilege,” said Noland. 

With his youngest son, Ben, attending Northern State in South Dakota for his freshman year of football, Noland and his wife have also had to handle the challenging season as empty nesters. 

“My wife’s been supportive of me for 27 years of coaching,” Noland said. “It’s been difficult for her and I this year because it’s the first time we haven’t had our three sons involved for the last 22 years, from little guys to all the way up, but overall we’ve been very blessed, and I’m blessed to have all of the support.”

Amelia Green and Josh Talevski are students in the sports media program at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.