Heathwood Hall names experienced assistant as Highlanders’ new football coach
Heathwood Hall has found its next football coach.
Assistant coach Tymere Zimmerman will be promoted to be the school’s next head football coach, The State has learned. The school later announced his hire on Thursday morning.
Zimmerman replaces Rick Reetz, who stepped down in September after a 1-5 start. Rip Blackstone finished the season as interim coach with Zimmerman acting as assistant head coach and head junior varsity coach. He also was the school’s strength and conditioning coach.
The Highlanders finished 2-9 and lost to Laurence Manning, 49-13, in the first round of the SCISA 4A playoffs.
“It feels right,” Zimmerman said. “I started something with them being the associate head coach and started building relationships with them. I just wanted to build off that and continue to build this program. ... I am going to give everything I got to make them enjoy the experience and get what they want out of playing football.”
Zimmerman interviewed for the head coaching job in the spring after Danny Lewis left to take a job at The Citadel. He said he has been overwhelmed with the support he has received in the school and those who reached out to him after it was announced he got the job.
The Highlanders have some good pieces to build around. Four-star defensive back Onis Konanberry is the second ranked prospect in SC for Class of 2025 and has nearly 30 Power Five offers. Quarterback Patrick Belk threw for almost 1,500 yards as a sophomore but had his junior season cut short by injury.
Zimmerman said he spend the next few months gearing for the offseason, put together his staff and continue to work the younger kids in the school.
“Being K-12 here at Heathwood, I can start with third and fourth graders, doing camps with them and getting them ready to be part of the program the next couple years,” Zimmerman said. “Usually a high school coach doesn’t get much say as far as middle school teams. Having those kids on campus and getting them started in the weight room will help us.”
This will be Zimmerman’s first head coaching job, though he has more than a decade of coaching experience. He was the receivers coach at Presbyterian College in 2020.
Before that, Zimmerman was an assistant coach at Lower Richland for five seasons, spent two years as an assistant coach at Lexington and three years at his alma mater Marlboro County.
On the field, Zimmerman was one of the top receivers in the country coming out of high school and selected to play in the All-American Bowl. He signed with Clemson but made his mark at Newberry College, where he was elected to the school’s Hall of Fame in 2014.
Zimmerman was a three-time, first-team South Atlantic Conference selection and has the school and SAC record for receiving touchdowns with 40. He also holds school records for receptions (250) and career yards (3,051).
Zimmerman was part of Newberry’s 11-2 team in 2006 that won the program’s first SAC title and made the Division II playoffs for the first time.
After college, Zimmerman played several seasons in arena football before getting into coaching.
SC High School Football openings
School — Former School — New Coach
Heathwood Hall — Rick Reetz — Tymere Zimmerman
Stall — Benjamin Lailson — TBA
Wando — Rocco Adrian — TBA
This story was originally published November 9, 2023 at 10:44 AM.
