Georgetown removes interim tag, making Cribb new football coach

What’s in a name? Georgetown football fans are about to find out.

On Tuesday, a little over one month after Bradley Adams left for Union County and Ken Cribb was given the job on an interim basis, Principal Craig Evans removed the temporary tag with support from Georgetown County School District officials. Cribb will be the 13th head coach in school history. Maybe more noticeably, he’ll be the second of the same name.

“I tell everybody I’m the new and improved version,” the newest Bulldog coach said.

From 1998-2000, another Ken Cribb coached the Georgetown football team. He was 13-19 overall in those three seasons and qualified for the playoffs in his second and third years. Not long after, he moved on to South Florence, then Stall, Fort Dorchester and eventually Bluffton, where he remains today.

The connection between the two men sharing a moniker doesn’t begin and end with their chosen profession (they are both also drivers education teachers), even at the same school.

While they can’t specifically cite the relation, they believe each other to be fourth or fifth cousins. What’s more, they both graduated from Pleasant Hill High, the current Bulldog coach in 1989, six years after the first. They each played baseball and football, lined up at the same positions and even wore the same numbers.

After Bluffton’s Cribb graduated from Coastal Carolina, he almost immediately got into coaching, baseball first, followed shortly after in football. Georgetown’s current Cribb graduated from Francis Marion and then spent two years as an assistant at Choppee, where he helped the team to a 1994 Class A title. From there, he moved on to Hemingway, where he was an assistant for eight seasons before taking over the program in 2004.

“That caused me some problems,” said Bluffton’s Cribb, who was at Class AAAA South Florence at the time. “I had some folks who thought I was [leaving to be] the head coach at Hemingway. They were giving me the cold shoulder.”

The Cribb who was actually hired to take over the Tigers went 101-36 in 11 seasons. He led Hemingway to the 2011 Class A, Division I state title. The next week, Bluffton and its Cribb were playing for the Class AAA championship.

Both men were also selected as assistants for the North-South All-Star Football game and Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas within two years of each other. Each step along the way, one was being confused for the other.

“It’s been that way every since he graduated from college,” Bluffton’s Cribb said. “I know he gets it too. It’s hilarious. People just can’t believe it.”

What was rumored to be a coach-in-waiting type situation before Adams left for Union County is now most definitely believable. Cribb, the one named to take over the Bulldogs on Tuesday, has every bit the resume Evans believes will keep Georgetown moving in the right direction.

He also has, after one season as an assistant under Adams, a direct tie to the best season in school history. Last fall, the Bulldogs finished in second place in Region VII-AAA, went 9-4 overall and won two playoff games in the same season for the first time.

“I love the kids. They’re hard-working, good kids,” Cribb said. “They’re hungry for success. They had a little success this year. I want to be a part of that.”

The namesake side story will also be along for the ride.

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Georgetown removes interim tag, making Cribb new football coach."