Why Erik Kimrey left ‘dream job’ at USC for elite high school program in Tennessee
There’s a fresh coat of fog hanging over this quiet pocket of the Cumberland Plateau in mid-July. A light dew still rests heavily on the grassy knolls scattered throughout Baylor School’s campus, while the train tracks that run past its entrance are still slick.
Second-year head football coach Erik Kimrey walks toward the middle of the field at 6:59 a.m. His whistle trills. Players hustle along the hash marks and gather around him.
Day 1 of preseason practice is here.
“My wife says it’s like the SEC meets ‘Dead Poets Society,’ ” Kimrey said, tongue-in-cheek, of his new employer.
That Kimrey is here donning a red short-sleeve, quarter-zip rain coat and grey gym shorts emblazoned with Baylor’s logo feels out of place to the untrained eye. Less than two years ago, the longtime Hammond School head coach landed on Shane Beamer’s initial South Carolina staff, coaching tight ends.
Kimrey said then working at South Carolina was a dream job. He was back at the place where a single pass against Mississippi State made him a legend, and where he earned his stripes as a graduate assistant under Lou Holtz.
So why did Kimrey leave the city and school that has comprised virtually his entire 44 years on this earth for a high school job in central Tennessee after just one season on the Gamecocks’ staff?
Let him explain.
“When you’re looking at time with your children and you know that that time is fleeting and you have the opportunity to be at a school like this, working for one of your best friends in a competitive environment that our region and our state is and your kids get to be a part of it — it was just hard to say no to that knowing that in a few short years they’ll all be gone,” Kimrey told The State.
“I just couldn’t justify saying no.”
From South Carolina to the mountains of Tennessee
Baylor School looks and feels like an East Coast prep school doused with Southern hospitality.
No, Kimrey isn’t standing on top of desks and leading English classes in Walt Whitman verses a la Robin Williams’ students, but the “Dead Poets Society” comparison isn’t far off.
Baylor’s history dates back to the late 1890s when its founder, John Roy Baylor, opened the school in downtown Chattanooga with 31 boys ages 10 to 17 all paying a tuition of $100.
The school moved to its current sprawling location overlooking the Tennessee River in 1915, a change spearheaded by a local businessman whose family had come into a fortune through Coca-Cola bottling companies.
Baylor’s identity has shifted plenty in that span. It had spells as a military school at varying points. It was also all boys for 74 of its first 92 years of existence, before becoming coed once again in 1985.
A walk around campus and one almost feels transported to another world. The school’s 690 acres of rolling hills are tucked in between three peaks — Elder, Lookout and Signal mountains — and bordered by the Tennessee River on its western side.
“It is a magical setting in the valley, surrounded by mountains, and right on the Tennessee River,” headmaster Chris Angel told The State. “It’s a beautiful, magical, physical place.”
That Kimrey has found himself at this historic prep school that feels closer to a college can best be attributed to Angel, a Baylor graduate who spent 17 concurrent years at Hammond School with Kimrey.
As Angel tells it, the two met in their early 20s during their first years at Hammond School — Kimrey as a football coach and teacher, while Angel worked as head of the upper school.
During one of Hammond’s first few football games during Kimrey’s tenure, his squad fell behind the sticks, facing a 4th-and-8 from his own 25 yard-line.
He went for it — and got it.
“We go for it and (our headmaster) turns and looks at me and he’s like, ‘Oh my God, this youth is gonna kill me,’ ” Angel recounted through a laugh.
Following his first fall as headmaster at Baylor in 2021, Angel decided to move on from head football coach Phil Massey, who’d compiled a 98-61 record over 16 years at the school.
It wasn’t that Massey failed, Angel explained, it’s that Baylor felt like it should be winning at a higher clip.
Kimrey echoed those sentiments. The football program had the DNA of a sleeping giant — top-notch facilities, fervent fan support, an ability to board students — but hadn’t ever matched the prolific athletic success of other teams.
Baylor’s boys and girls golf teams, combined swim team and softball squads, for example, have won 78 state titles in their history.
Football? Just one, in 1973.
Meeting with his team in the school’s nondenominational chapel for his first team meeting after being hired in 2021, Kimrey echoed a simple vision.
“Guys, I’ve looked at some things, and I’m here to tell you, we’re going to play for championships at Baylor,” he said. “We don’t need to wait. It’s not going to be in Year 2, or 3, or 4.
“We’re going to play for championships this year.”
‘It just felt right’
Kimrey wasn’t looking to leave. South Carolina afforded him comfort and a shot at the college game after a dynastic run at Hammond School.
Still, he and Angel, who became close friends during their time in Columbia, had an agreement: If Baylor’s job ever opened, Kimrey wanted Angel to at least give him a call.
That call, in theory, would’ve come when Kimrey was still at Hammond — not 14 months after landing one of his two “dream” jobs at USC.
Still, Angel held up his end of the bargain. Kimrey thought long and hard. He and his wife, Erica, discussed it. He contemplated if he wanted to leave the college game.
Baylor became impossible to pass up.
“I’m not sure (Angel) thought I would leave and I’m not sure that I thought I would leave at that point in time,” Kimrey said. “But when we came up and visited (Baylor School), it just felt right.”
Those on the outside might tell you Kimrey was crazy to leave an SEC coaching position that paid him $200,000 annually for a high school job. But Baylor is far from a normal high school job.
Kimrey’s squad is littered with high-major FBS products and has the benefit of being able to board students on campus (25% of the student body does so, independent of sports affiliations).
Baylor’s senior class includes Alabama receiver commit Amari Jefferson (No. 209 in the 247Sports Composite) and Ohio State tight end pledge Max LeBlanc (No. 268), among a slew of other major prospects.
Oh, and Kimrey’s quarterback ought to be familiar to those around Columbia.
As this practice nears its midway point, ex-South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp settles into the bleachers atop Baylor’s on-campus stadium. Donning a black tour-style Georgia visor and a red T-shirt with “CAA Sports” (the agency that reps him) scripted in block lettering across his chest, he watches practice in relative anonymity.
This much, at least in July, is normal.
Muschamp’s son, Whit, a Vanderbilt commitment, is entering his second year as Kimrey’s No. 1 signal caller after transferring from Hammond ahead of the 2021 season. Will makes it out to games when his schedule in Athens allows.
“It’s a little cooler than Columbia, huh, Whit?” Kimrey quips of the cool air on this July morning.
“Yeah, it is,” Whit concurs through a smile.
A comfort in family and coaching at the Baylor School
After practice concludes at 9:36 a.m., Kimrey whips his golf cart down the road that houses the school’s guard gate, skirts up a hill and pushes the pedal to the floor as it climbs toward his home that overlooks the football field.
Kimrey and Angel lived in the same neighborhood during their nearly two decades overlapping in Columbia. Now, they’re two houses apart in houses provided by the school and separated only by the home of a math teacher.
The trek from field to front door takes all of about three minutes by golf cart. Kimrey jokes he didn’t drive a car on campus once last year. About the only time he ever set foot in a non-golf cart involved taking the team bus or running into downtown Chattanooga for dinner here or there.
Kimrey is at peace with his decision to leave Columbia. Cool mountain air and a view from his front porch that would rival most any in Appalachia tend to ease any kind of remorse.
Still, he had his legitimate reasons.
The college recruiting calendar was a bear. He’s also been able to spend more time with his three kids, Kaitlyn Dean, Karis and Ty. The youngest, Ty, is starting in sixth grade at Baylor this fall and will, like his father, play football. Kaitlyn Dean and Karis were part of the school’s production of “Legally Blonde.” Kimrey made sure to be there.
“I’ve got three kids and the life of a college coach — which I knew — you don’t see them very much,” Kimrey said. “And these are very important years in terms of their growth and development. I had the opportunity to share those with them more.
“Just knowing what this place was and what it could be … it was hard to say no to it.”
The football side, too, has its perks. Kimrey won Baylor’s first state title in 49 years in his Year 1 at the helm. Baylor’s title defense begins on Friday night against Rabun Gap.
Then comes a trip to Ireland, where Baylor will take on Seton Hall (NJ) as part of a lead-up to Notre Dame’s season opener against Navy in Dublin.
Yeah, not your average high school schedule.
“It’s kind of like being the head coach of a small college,” Kimrey said. “... It’s an unbelievable campus and tradition and atmosphere. The support here is incredible.
“But it’s a larger operation, and there’s a recruiting component because of our boarding in terms of when kids are interested and making sure we tour them, keep up with them and they fit the standard of the type of student-athletes that we want here.”
Kimrey will tell you he had two dream jobs — South Carolina and Baylor School. He was forced to choose between the two just one year after landing at USC. Baylor, Kimrey says, feels like a job he could hold the rest of his career.
But at 44, retirement ought to be a ways off. Perhaps Kimrey will find himself back in the Midlands down the line.
For now, comfort comes in the form of a short golf cart ride to work with a picturesque view.
