Jimmy Espy: Transitions

Dalton Daily Citizen

March 29, 2008 10:44 pm

— Three well-known local leaders said their goodbyes this week to jobs they’ve held for awhile.
Dalton High School’s Ronnie McClurg kicked off the trend by resigning as head football coach early in the week. That was followed by the resignation of Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center director Rick Tanner. Topping off the busy week was the Friday announcement that George Woodward, president of the Chamber of Commerce had resigned.
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The McClurg situation was the most smoothly choreographed. McClurg, 67, will stay on as athletic director at DHS, which should help new coach Adam Winegarden. McClurg can serve as a consultant and as a buffer for the new coach, who will face the usual outside pressures which come with the high-profile job.
Winegarden, 30, has never been a head coach, but in his eight years in the program he’s helped keep the Dalton offense versatile and aggressive. By all accounts he’s been an exceptional position coach and fine offensive coordinator. Now, though, it really gets tough.
There’s a solid core of young talent returning next year, though not as strong as the veteran team McClurg inherited from Bill McManus in 2001. It was already going to be an interesting season for Dalton fans. Now, even more so.
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Rick Tanner quit his job at the trade center, but he did so at the insistence of center’s supervisory board, which appeared ready to fire him. If there was a specific transgression that earned the board’s ire, everyone is remaining quiet about it.
Whatever the reason, it was a shocking fall from grace for Tanner, who came here four years ago and initially enjoyed the solid backing of most board members. Whatever the final straw was, Tanner’s relationship with his bosses had obviously eroded in recent months. Board members who at one time seemed to support him without question were increasingly barraging him with questions. And that’s just at the public meetings. Imagine the private conversations!
Tanner has his share of critics and deservedly so. Anyone who insists on mucking around in local politics is going to get burned. Sometimes it’s best to just shut up and do your job. On the other hand, Tanner was not afraid to to take the public body shots when it came to making a controversial move. While board members stayed safely in the background, Tanner was bold in his advocacy on issues like expanded alcohol sales and the need for a hotel to be built next to the trade center. We’ll see who assumes that public punching bag role now.
How much of Tanner’s rude awakening this week was deserved and how much, if any, was the result of petty internal politics and the personal animus is open to conjecture. But if the decision to run him off costs the trade center the hotel deal we have been led to believe is a real possibility, then the board will have a lot of explaining to do to a public grown weary of paying the bills.
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Tanner could have learned something from the Chamber’s Woodward, who in his nearly nine years on the job was a textbook example of a cautious, connected politically attuned mover and shaker. I didn’t always agree with Woodward’s views, but have admired the way he steadily advanced them, with no attempt at personal aggrandizement. (He always reminded me of the Tom Hagan character played by Robert Duvall in “The Godfather,” minus the mob angle, of course.)
If Woodward was pushed out of his position it would be news to me. Chamber Executive Board Chairman Bill Jourdain said the decision was a “surprise,” but I have to wonder if that’s a real surprise or the kind of “surprise” lawyers suffer when they don’t want to say more.
Whatever the cause of the event, Woodward’s absence leaves a gaping hole in local business and civic affairs.

Jimmy Espy is the executive editor of The Daily Citizen