Steve Taneyhill looking for new coaching opportunities

Like most football coaches, Steve Taneyhill is used to a routine.

For the last two months, that routine has been altered because Taneyhill was relieved of his head coaching duties at Union County on Jan. 13 after four seasons.

“It has been a strange eight weeks,” Taneyhill said Friday. “It is weird not having a team to get ready for the next season and getting ready for spring practice. I’m a routine person, not being in a routine, it has been different.”

Taneyhill hopes that will change soon and wants to coach football again. The former South Carolina Gamecocks quarterback has been busy seeking opportunities over the past month or so. He sent out resumes for a few high school openings in South Carolina.

One of the schools told him he wasn’t qualified because he wasn’t certified as a teacher. That’s something Taneyhill says can be fixed in a few months time.

He said that shouldn’t be an issue because most of the football coaches around the state don’t carry full teaching loads. In his previous stops at Chesterfield and Union County, he held other duties such as being an assistant to the principal or was head of the strength program.

Taneyhill said there was some conversation for a position with his alma mater South Carolina, but nothing materialized. He was the Gamecocks’ quarterback from 1992-95 and threw for 8,782 yards and 62 touchdowns.

Recently, he has sent out resumes for a job at a 6A school in Texas, which he said might be a long shot and one to a school in his hometown of Altoona, Pa.

Taneyhill, who is open to taking an assistant coaching job if it is the right fit, would like to stay in the Palmetto State but knows that might not happen.

“I’m under the realization that I’m probably going to have to leave the state,” Taneyhill said. “So we will have to see.”

Taneyhill has the resume that schools are looking for in a coach. He went 71-22 at Chesterfield and led the Rams to three straight Class A championships in 2007-09.

During his four seasons at Union County, he went 22-27 but led the Yellow Jackets to a Class 3A championship game in his first season and the upper state title game this year after starting out 0-4. South Pointe defeated Union County 27-12 on its way to a second straight championship.

Union County named Georgetown coach Bradley Adams as Taneyhill’s successor on Wednesday.

“I’m not surprised, it was a tough last two years. There was a lot of turnover there, the superintendant left and everything,” Taneyhill said of his dismissal. “I told my parents if the South Pointe game (upper state championship) was my last game there, I was fine with it. The run we made this year, I was proud of my team. We didn’t get to state championship but it was fulfilling.

“I wish the players and coach Adams the best. I don’t hold anything against Union. They needed a change.”

This story was originally published March 11, 2016 at 11:19 PM with the headline "Steve Taneyhill looking for new coaching opportunities."