Stallion coach leaving for family business

Coach Jake Fonvielle

    Jake Fonvielle is leaving the football field for the family business, carrying on a tradition that will span four generations as the South Columbus High School Athletic Director and Head Football Coach steps down effective March 28.
    Fonvielle is joining his father, Leon Edward Fonvielle, in the family business, E.W. Fonvielle & son, a Hickman road farm and garden supply center founded in 1931 by Fonvielle’s great-grandfather.
    School leaders have known of his plans for several weeks, Fonvielle said Tuesday, though the decision was not to be formal, or final, before this morning.
    Fonvielle said he would be delivering his formal resignation to Principal Eddie Beck just as this week’s Tabor-Loris Tribune print edition went to press this morning.
    A graduate of South Columbus High, Fonvielle has either played or coached at the school for 17 years, the last 13 on the faculty. He was named Head Coach and Athletic Director in January 2009 as Joey Price stepped away to lead the football program at Wallace Rose Hill High School.
    Fonvielle, 35, said Price and legendary coach Jack Holley, who died last year, were among his mentors, and among many good coaches he’s worked for, or with.
    “I’ve had a chance to coach with a lot of great coaches since being at South Columbus,” Fonvielle said.
    A 1997 South Columbus grad, Fonvielle was an assistant coach for eight years before being named head coach. He earned his undergraduate degree at East Carolina University, his teaching credential and a master’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
    See the full story in today’s Tabor-Loris Tribune print or full on-line editions.