C.A. Johnson hires football coach with rebuilding track record

Stephen Roberson knows about turning around high school football programs and will try to do it again at C.A. Johnson.

According to the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer, Roberson is leaving Westover High School to become the new football coach at C.A. Johnson. His hire is pending board approval next week.

Roberson replaces Demond Logan, who stepped down after two seasons.

C.A. Johnson was the last Midlands football program with an opening. Roberson will be one of 10 new coaches in the area next season. The Yellow Jackets went 1-9 in 2016. They haven’t had a winning season since 2009, when they went 7-4 and lost in the first round of the playoffs to Calhoun County.

“It’s another rebuild project, definitely,” Roberson told the Fayetteville Observer. “Coming off a 1-9 season, it’s a lot of work that’s going into it. In South Carolina, one of the things is that football is really a priority when it comes to athletics, and that’s one of the things that really appeals to me.”

Roberson, who retired from a career in the Army in 2006, turned things around at his last two stops, at South Robeson and Westover. South Robeson was winless before Roberson arrived in 2012, but advanced to the third round of the playoffs two years later.

Roberson coached at Westover the past three years. The team won one game, by forfeit, the first year but was 8-4 this year and won share of the Cape Fear Valley 3-A Conference.

This story was originally published June 6, 2017 at 4:31 PM with the headline "C.A. Johnson hires football coach with rebuilding track record."