When Casey Orr was officially approved as the new head football coach at Kosciusko High School on Monday afternoon, it left Noxapater in search of a new leader for its football program.
Orr said he was excited about the opportunity to lead the MHSAA Class 4A program at Kosciusko, but would miss his players and the friends he had made in Noxapater.
“I have been in Noxapater for eight years, the majority of my coaching career,” Orr said on Monday afternoon. “I talked to the kids this morning and that was really, really hard. Because of the relationships you build with those kids, the bonds you create with those kids it’s tough to tell them you are leaving. No matter how you explain it, it’s hard for them not to feel like they are being left. Those kids mean a lot to me.
“I’m 33 years old and spent eight years there so basically you can say 25 percent of my life was spent at Noxapater,” Orr said. “I made memories there I won’t ever forget and I built relationships there that made it hard to those people that I was leaving. Those are the things that I will remember forever.”
Noxapater principal Chet Wilkes said the job opening was on the website and hoped a suitable candidate would be found in a reasonable amount of time. The next meeting of the Louisville School Board is set for March 24.
“We are just going to look at who is interested and do our best to pick the right person,” Wilkes said. “It’s going to be interesting to see who applies.”
He said he hated to see Orr go, but said it was positive that for the third consecutive time a larger school was interested in the Noxapater head football coach — referring to Tyler Peterson and Justin Hunter.
KHS had been diligently searching for a new coach since the resignation of Kelly Causey last December. Kosy thought it had found its man earlier this year when the board approved the hiring of Hunter. He however, opted to take the head coaching job at Pearl High School when it came available a few weeks after he was approved as the KHS coach. Hunter was the offensive coordinator at Pearl. Interestingly enough he was the head coach at Noxapater High School the two years before Orr became head coach. Peterson, the head coach at Noxapater before Hunter, was also hired by Kosciusko. Peterson eventually left Kosy for Northwest Rankin and is now at Brandon High School.
“Kosciusko athletic Director Macy Wilbanks said there were 23 additional applicants sent in after the position was re-opened following Hunter’s decision to take the Pearl job. She said overall there were a total of 69 applicants and all were reconsidered before Orr was hired, noting that two candidates were interviewed before the decision was made. She also confirmed that Hunter and Orr were the only two coaches offered the position during the entire process.
Orr has a record of 50-26 in his six years as head coach at Noxapater, he served the two previous years as defensive coordinator of the Tigers and was an assistant at Starkville Academy before going to Noxapater.
This past season Noxapater lost a tight contest to eventual MHSAA Class 1A State Champion Nanih Waiya in the North State finals. He is a graduate of Ackerman High School.
He served the last four years as athletic director at Noxapater, and will serve as an assistant athletic director at Kosy. He had also previously served as head baseball coach at Noxapater for five seasons.
Orr and his wife Linley live in Choctaw County with their three children — 11-year old Kip Frey, 10-year-old Colt Frey, and 4-month-old Charlotte Orr.
