Who needs it? Who wants it?

And the Catawba County coaching merry-go-round keeps going round and round... It is official as of Monday evening that Doug Justice has resigned his position as head coach of the St. Stephens Indians, effective immediately. The move comes as Justice has accepted the head coaching position at North Henderson High School in Hendersonville.

In an article published in the Daily Record Justice explained the situation.

"The decision was partly family and partly the raise for our family. That's the biggest decision it was. It was not because of anything bad or anything like that. It was a move to better our financial situation and things like that for our family."

Justice compiled a 14-44 mark in five years at St. Stephens. Three of the school's seven trips to the playoffs came under Justice's watch. The three postseason appearances are the most among St. Stephens football coaches.

The Indians made the postseason each of last two seasons and also in 2003 - Justice's first season with the Indians.

Prior to coaching at St. Stephens, Justice was an assistant at East Henderson high school.

How sad is it that a 14-44 record must be considered a successful one at St. Stephens? St. Stephens did finish the 2007 season with a 6-6 overall record (4-4 in the CVAC), which looks awfully good when you compare it to the back-to-back 0-11 records of 2004 and 2005. And it is true that the Indians under Justice went to the playoffs more times than under any other coach. St. Stephens has gone to the playoffs three times in the past five years.

Now getting into the postseason dance 60% of the time actually sounds pretty good (by Springs Road standards, anyway). Of course it's also true that without the severely watered-down playoff system that we have now (which began in 2003, Justice's first year as head coach at St. Stephens) there might not have been any trips to the playoffs at all.

All you need these days to qualify for the postseason is a losing record. I can't think of a team better equipped to lose its way into the playoffs than the Indians. And hey, every playoff needs some bracket fillers.

I have never met Coach Justice personally but I believe he did the best he could with the material available to him on the Springs Road side of town and I have no doubt he will enjoy many seasons of genuine success at North Henderson. I'm sure he deserves something better than what he had at SSHS. At least he won't have the Red Tornadoes to deal with anymore.

As for the vacancy at St. Stephens - with approximately seven weeks before the beginning of formal pre-season practice - maybe Tom Brown will return from Elba and take on the Herculean task of keeping that feverish, break-even momentum going strong at St. Stephens (the other high school in Hickory).