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Veteran coach James “Speed” Sampley accepted an offer last week to resume his career as a head football coach at Lowndes Academy in the fall.

The school announced Sampley’s much-anticipated appointment late Tuesday, Feb. 11, naming 

Sampley, who is currently golf coach at Fort Dale Academy, as head football coach. 

Fort Dale Headmaster David Sikes said Sampley will stay complete the 2024-25 school year in Greenville and expressed his confidence for Sampley’s next chapter of coaching.

“I’m sure that he will do a fine job,” Sikes said. “They did well hiring him. He’s a good football coach and a good man who works hard.”

For Sampley, the transition brings a renewal of his role as football coach, with a return to the place where his coaching career began.

“It’s an opportunity to go back and coach where I started,” Sampley said. “I’m from Lowndes County and have lived there my whole life. It gives me the opportunity to coach kids [whose] fathers I coached and that’s always something neat to do.”

One of those he coached is Lowndes Academy Athletic Director Matt Marshall, who credits Sampley with inspiring his desire to shape young student athletes.

“Coach Speed is the man that got me interested in coaching nearly 27 years ago,” Marshall said. “He shaped my life into the person I have become and the coach I most want to be like. He taught me as a student as much about life as he did about Xs and Os.”

Sampley worked as assistant football coach at Lowndes Academy for seven years before taking on the role of head coach in 1994. In 1999, he began coaching at Fort Dale, where he has been for 26 years.

According to the Alabama High School Football Historical Society, Sample holds a 156-78-0 record and coached his first Alabama Independent School Association (AISA) State Championship team at Lowndes Academy in 1997. He was named as the AISA Coach of the Year by the Alabama Sports Writers Association in 2008.

Marshall explained that the Lowndes Academy board of trustees hires the head football coach through an application and interview process and by recommendation from the athletic committee.

“I’m grateful that the board made this decision and extremely grateful for Speed accepting,” Marshall said. “Ninety percent of our coaching staff is familiar with or played for Speed when he was in his 20s. Some of us have wired with him at Fort Dale or at Lowndes.

“We feel this transition will be seamlessly beneficial for the entire school as we move to a new era.”

Sikes commended Sampley for his years of dedication to Fort Dale students and staff. The school will begin taking applications to fill the position left empty upon his departure.

“We are grateful for all the things he’s done and the [love] he has poured into FDA for all these years,” Sikes said. “We hate to lose him but he’ll do a good job there.”

Sampley fills the position left vacant by former head coach Shane Moye, who moved to coach at Prattville Christian in January. The school will host a meet-and-greet for the community to get acquainted with Sampley on Feb. 24. The exact time has yet to be determined.