Football: North Forsyth adds former Parkview coach Cecil Flowe to staff

Article courtesy of Forsyth County News

To the North Forsyth football players during spring practice, he was just Coach Cecil Flowe.

To many of the players’ parents, he was something of a celebrity.

“I had quite a few dads and parents come up to me after practice and say, ‘Is that Cecil Flowe on our field?’” Raiders head coach Robert Craft said.

Indeed, it was. Craft added the legendary Parkview head coach to his staff this spring to fill the role of assistant head coach and coach the offensive line.

Under Flowe, Parkview became the signature high school football program in Georgia’s largest classification in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Flowe went 197-67 in 21 seasons with the Panthers. He won his first state title in 1997, then three straight from 2000-02. At one point, Flowe’s teams won 46 consecutive games, a state record at the time.

Flowe retired after the 2013 season and has been at King’s Ridge Christian the past two seasons helping both the baseball and football programs while living in Cumming.

“For me it was a no-brainer to add somebody like him to our staff,” Craft said. “He was at the point in his career where he wanted to help a program out. For me to be able to add a guy like that gives such credibility to our program, the director we’re trying to go, and also for me to have a guy like that as an assistant head coach with his experience was a no-brainer.

“And I think also for our school and administration to add a guy like that, he’s going to be an asset to our entire school.”

Craft and Flowe have history. They first met in 2004 when Craft was looking for his first assistant coaching job out of college. Flowe interviewed Craft at Parkview. Craft decided to accept a job at Colquitt County.

Craft went from Colquitt to become head coach at North Florida Christian for six years before coming to North this past January to replace Jason Galt.

Soon after, Craft heard Flowe was living in the area.

“He and I just had some mutual friends,” Craft said. “We both kind of reached out to each other when I got his job.”

Flowe figures to be a great resource for Craft as he tries to provide stability and consistent success to a Raiders program that has lacked both over the past decade.

“He is not one with an ego or anything like that,” Craft said. “He just wants to be a help to our program like any other assistant coach.”