BEULAH — The Alabama Football Coaches Association (ALFCA) recently named Beulah’s Cody Flournoy the 3A Coach of the Year. This past season, Flournoy led the Bobcats to a turnaround season, finishing the year 8-3 while having the opportunity to host a playoff game. Beulah finished the 2017 season with a 3-7 record.

“It’s a good feeling,” Flournoy said. “Regardless of awards, or not, we knew we had a good season, but other people have recognized it, and this is a part of it. “

Flournoy received the honor after his second season as a head coach. The longtime assistant in the East Alabama region received his first shot in the role last year with Beulah, and hasn’t looked back since.

“The group that chose me was a group of coaches,” he said. “They know what goes into it. Sometimes, this stuff gets caught up with sportswriters that know local groups and stuff, but coaching’s a brotherhood. We all know the hours that go in, and the time it takes to get things turned around and get things done. That makes me feel good because other coaches in the state have recognized what we’ve done here. They know what it takes to turn around a program and have a season like the one we’ve had.”

This past season marked the most wins in a season for the Bobcats in the greater part of the last 20 years. This was the first season that Flournoy spent a full offseason with the team after he was hired in late summer 2017.

“It’s a process,” he said. “The guys trusted me from the get-go. They jumped on board when I was coming in, even after a 3-7 season. They were all on board. This season, you can see that they really bought in and really trusted what we were doing. The way that we won this year is that we played for each other, we did things right, the guys really bought into what we were doing and it was a team effort. One game it might have been a defensive struggle, the next game, it might’ve been an offensive thing. Even the last game of the year when we lost in the playoffs, we were right there. The defense kept us in it, had a chance to win the game, and we went out as we have all season, we just couldn’t quite pull it off. That was the mark of our team this year, we were all for one. ”

Junior running back Chris Person had a breakout season in particular, rushing for over 1,000 in 2018.

“That was fun to see a guy like that prosper because it was the type of team that we had,” Flournoy said. 

While the head football coach was appreciative of the recognition, he deferred all the credit off of himself.

“Football’s truly a team sport,” he said. “There’s a lot of pieces that went into us having a successful year. From the administration, the teachers in the classroom, definitely our assistant coaches and the players too. Everybody bought in, everybody jumped on board, the community got behind us and this award is a reflection of that. Of course, I get the benefits because I’m the head guy here, but there are just so many people who have had a hand in this, from the booster club on.”

Flournoy also expressed his gratitude that he has for his family, who made the move to Beulah High School with him. His children are students at the school, who both play sports as well, while his wife is now a teacher at Beulah. This past season Flournoy’s daughter was one of the students to start a Beulah student section for the Bobcats’ home football games.

“It’s been such a relief for them just to be here,” Flournoy said. “They’re so happy for me. It’s one thing that we’ve done together as a family and it was one of the sticking points for me taking the job that is was going to be very family-oriented, community-oriented, and that’s what we’ve got here at Beulah. It’s what I envisioned what being a head coach would be like.”

Moving forward, Flournoy’s next goal is to begin winning games in the postseason. Beulah returns a decent corps and brings in rising sophomores who were on this season’s undefeated freshman football team.