BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE OBSERVER
BEAUREGARD — Before the hot summer sun ever had a chance to evaporate the predawn dew from the grass, Beauregard High School’s football team had long been hard at work.
Dozens of players shuffled around the practice field, moving from warmup lines and position drills to a team-wide walkthrough.
Later in the morning, they gathered in the weight room for a “four-quarter” workout that tested their mental and physical toughness.
After a tumultuous offseason that saw former head coach Shenan Motley resign after just one season and numerous players transfer to other area schools, the Hornets had little time to waste.
With roughly two months at his alma mater under his belt, current head coach Seneric McCurdy already knows what this season will be about, and it isn’t the final record.
“Coming from where I come from, I had to slow down and teach myself patience because we’re starting something new, from ground zero as far as laying the foundation,” McCurdy said. “For you to have a strong house, the first thing you have to do is lay the foundation.”
Setting the standard
When McCurdy was formally introduced as BHS’s 19th head football coach on May 13, the program he inherited was not the one Beauregard fans remember from a decade ago.
Several older players transferred out before he arrived, leaving a roster stocked with ninth and 10th graders and just four seniors.
He is also the third head coach that a sizable number of the remaining players have had in as many years.
“That trust issue, as far as you having the coach that you love, that ends up leaving, then hiring a new coach, and he only stayed for one season, then he left, so the kids are kind of hesitant about opening up to a new guy,” McCurdy said. “Which I understand.”
His first challenge was less about installing an offense than about getting bodies in the building and earning the room.
What McCurdy has done since getting his hands on the program is implement a routine: phones go in a bin, earrings come out, the schedule is posted and the schedule is kept.
Once the team apparel finally gets delivered, players will also be expected to maintain a cohesive appearance.
“My core values are discipline, attitude, toughness and effort,” McCurdy said. “For you to have discipline, you’ve got to have structure. Every successful program I’ve been in has been structured.”
Players say that is the change they noticed first and exactly what they had been missing.
Senior Elijah Boudreau, who plays tight end, guard and linebacker, was blunt about last season.
“Our last coach didn’t really have any structure, and he didn’t put a standard down for us,” Boudreau said. “He didn’t voice himself as a coach to us, which we were used to from our previous coach, who left. And it just went out of control, and then we had that really bad losing season.”
McCurdy said his read on teenagers is that the resistance is mostly performative.
“They may act like they don’t want structure and try to be cool, but at the end of the day, they want to be coached hard,” McCurdy said. “They want a routine.”
Thus far, the pleasant surprise has been the buy-in. McCurdy said he expected some potential pushback from a culture change, but hasn’t gotten any so far.
“The kids who have shown up and been coming, they come in, they work hard and they’re eager to learn,” McCurdy said. “They work their tails off.”
Calibrating expectations
However, the program still faces multiple challenges during what is expected to be a rebuilding year.
Last year, BHS finished the season 3-8 overall and 3-3 in 5A Region 4 play, good for fourth place. A 48-14 loss to Northside High School in the first round quickly followed a miraculous run to the playoffs.
McCurdy candidly admitted that the Hornets will be young and have to learn their lessons the hard way.
“We’re going to play hard, and we’ll give everything we’ve got, but we may take some licks this year,” McCurdy said. “At the end of the day, if those kids stick together, they’ll eventually become successful.”
McCurdy then said he expected the community would grade the Hornets on something other than the scoreboard and instead focus on week-to-week improvements, discipline on the field, sportsmanship and whether the team understands what it’s doing and why it’s doing it.
He said that he’s seen the pattern hold before.
McCurdy’s first coaching job was at Crisp County High School in Cordele, Georgia, under a head coach who had come home to a program that was down and with a roster similarly thinned out.
“We started a lot of ninth and 10th graders that year, and we ended up going 3-7,” McCurdy said. “But the next year we came back, we went 13-1 and went to the semifinals.”
Several of those same players eventually signed Division I scholarships, and two — Quay Walker and Jammie Robinson — now play for the Las Vegas Raiders and the Atlanta Falcons, respectively.
“They took their licks, but they got better and better every week,” McCurdy said. “We put in a hard offseason with that same core.”
Emphasizing academics
McCurdy, who is completing a doctorate, made academics a centerpiece of his introduction, and he intends to keep it that way this fall.
“Football is going to end for everybody someday, because even if you make it to the NFL, it’s going to end one day,” McCurdy said. “Even if your highlight film gets [college coaches’] attention, the next thing they ask is, ‘What’s his transcript like?’”
The plan is hands-on
McCurdy said he’ll email teachers at the start of the year and ask them to come to him first with any disciplinary problems.
He’ll also be visible in the hallways and collect progress reports on every athlete every two and a half weeks so nothing sneaks up on him. Anything below a C means extra work after practice, every day, until the grade comes up.
Then there’s the task of making sure the juniors who want to play at the next level get registered with the NCAA clearinghouse.
Even with a substantial amount of time and energy devoted to getting underclassmen prepared for their academic and athletic futures, ask McCurdy what he’s most looking forward to, and he doesn’t say the first game.
One last ride
With a substantial number of returning upperclassmen opting to leave the program for greener pastures in their minds, McCurdy said he wants to reward the loyalty of those who decided to stick it out with the Hornets.
“We’ve got four seniors on the team,” McCurdy said. “It’s tough for them. A lot of their classmates are gone. These seniors who decided to stay and not transfer and play here, they hold a special place in my heart. The main thing I want to do is send them out the right way.”
Boudreau, one of the four, put his own senior year about as simply as he could.
“[McCurdy is] a really good coach. I do wish sometimes he got here earlier — maybe things would have turned out differently,” Boudreau said. “But I’m going to try to enjoy myself in my last year. I’m just ready to play, have fun and play.”
McCurdy, who said he’s glad to be back home and near family, isn’t planning to overload anybody between now and Week 1.
“This year we’ll have a small menu with a big understanding,” he said. “We’re going to do the basics very well, then we’ll build from there.”
There will be ups and downs, and he’s already told the players as much.
“Adversity is a great teacher in life,” McCurdy said. “These kids have been through some adversity, and if they stick with it, I think at the end it’ll make them stronger — and they’ll be glad they stuck with it.”
BHS kicks its 2026 season off at home against Reeltown High School on Aug. 21 at 7 p.m.
