Longtime RHS football assistant Townley reflects on his over 30-year coaching career

When the Russellville Golden Tigers run out onto the football field at Deshler’s Howard Chappell Stadium on Friday night, they will be doing so, for the first time in over 30 years, without longtime assistant coach Tim Townley on the sideline.

Townley, who announced his decision to retire at the end of the last school year, was a staple at Russellville schools for over three decades, teaching physical education at Russellville Elementary during the school day before heading down to the field house or the football practice field—the “porkchop”—or the basketball gym in the afternoon. 

When Townley retired after 36 years at Russellville, he was the system’s longest-tenured certified staff member.

“I loved coming to work every day,” Townley said. “My dad told me a long time ago, ‘Son, if you find something you really love to do, and you can do it, then you’ll never work a day in your life.’ And that’s what it felt like for all those years.”

Townley, a Winfield native, said coaching was what he always wanted to do, and it’s a path he’s been following ever since he graduated from Winfield High School. 

After graduation, Townley said he started by sticking around his hometown for a couple years coaching younger kids in recreational leagues and helping with middle schoolers. He then enrolled at the University of North Alabama where he pursued both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

When it was time for Townley to complete his student teaching, he ended up doing it at Russellville. That’s how he got his foot in the door.

“I did my student teaching here at Russellville and Coach (Don) Cox asked me to help with spring football, so I helped in the spring and Coach Cox told me he really liked me and the first opportunity he got he was going to hire me at Russellville,” Townley said.

At the time, though, there were no openings at Russellville, so Townley officially began his teaching and coaching career at Red Bay, teaching elementary P.E., coaching football, and assisting longtime Red Bay coach Donnie Roberts with the girls’ basketball team. Two years later, he got that promised call from Cox.

“Coach Cox called me in the summer after my second year (at Red Bay) and told me there was a position open for girls’ basketball, so I started at Russellville coaching girls’ basketball and as an assistant for football at the middle school,” Townley said.

Townley continued to coach the RHS girls’ basketball team for several years, but it was in 1995 when he got the football coaching promotion from the middle school up to the high school varsity.

“I would help the varsity on Friday nights. I’d be in the press box charting plays or just doing whatever they needed me to do and learning our system,” he said. “But then when Coach (Ted) Ikerd took over the (head) coaching duties I moved up to the high school and took a position coaching inside linebackers.”

The rest, as they say, is history. And Townley helped create a lot of history with the Russellville varsity football team. Over the course of 30 years with the varsity program, he was a part of 13 region championship teams and made five state championship appearances. The Golden Tigers won over 260 games during that span and made the playoffs in 25 of those years. From 2000 to 2012, RHS made the playoffs every season and won 42 consecutive region games from 2001 to 2006 on the way to six straight region titles.

The reason for that success, Townley said, is because a culture was created at Russellville where preparation is paramount and high expectations are demanded to be met.

“Success breeds success,” he said. “Now, don’t get me wrong—we had athletes. But we had really good players that bought in and did what they were asked to do. We had a coaching staff that was all on board. Everyone knew what the expectations were: Every year it’s not successful unless we’re playing for a championship.

“But going and preparing, every day, step-by-step, your kids to play on Friday night and them understanding what the expectations were, that’s really where we’ve been successful,” he added. “We’ve had some great head coaches and every head coach is a little different. I worked under eight head coaches, three of them are in the (AHSAA) hall of fame—Coach Cox, Coach (Perry) Swindall, and Coach (Doug) Goodwin. They all had their different ways of preparation, but it came down to the same thing: You prepare your players to play, get them ready, and do the best job you can do. That’s how I approached it every day.”

Townley, of course, was humble about the role he himself played in all that success, but he said he was just doing his job.

“I’ll be honest, when my (players) played well, I think I probably got too much credit because I didn’t make one tackle, I didn’t block one punt, and I didn’t intercept any passes. But you feel good when your kids play well,” he said. “By the same token, when they didn’t play very well, I didn’t have a whole lot to do with that either because I prepared them the same way every week.”

But, as he said, preparation was a major contributing factor to the Golden Tigers’ success; it just happened to be the thing Townley was known for.

“We’re going to work on the fundamentals; we’re going to tackle, we’re going to get off blocks, we’re going to read our keys,” Townley said. “We’re going to know what the other team likes to do; we’re going to know what their favorite plays are, what formations they like to run and how they like to run it.

“After football practice was over with, the coaches on the defensive staff met and we watched the film. After I got home, most times I ate supper sitting at the computer. I’d pull up Hudl, pull up our practice (film), go through it, make notes and send them to my linebackers so they’d know where they made mistakes; and then we could go out the next day and correct what we’d done wrong the day before. That’s the process, and you do it over and over and over and over,” he added.

One person who has had the distinct privilege of being both coached by and coaching with Townley is Torey Baird, a 2008 graduate of RHS who was hired as an assistant on Golden Tiger football coaching staff before the start of the 2024 season. Baird can attest to Townley’s work ethic: He’s never seen any coach prepare as well as Townley.

“I knew this playing for him—and I’ve seen it now coaching with him, too—but his unit was going to be the most prepared unit on the team going into Friday night,” Baird said. 

“Every Saturday he’d go to the field house and make scout tapes—at least three for every starter. In those days he coached the Will (weak side), Sam (strong side), and Mike (middle) linebackers…so he’d have each of the starters a scout tape. And these were the VHS days, you know, so he basically had to sit up there and make them and run them through that machine, but he made sure we had those tapes,” Baird said, recalling his playing days under Townley. “We weren’t allowed to rewind them, so when we turned them in on Thursday he knew exactly how much we had watched. He demanded and took pride in the smallest details.”

Baird said it was Townley’s hard work and dedication to preparing his players that turned a little bit of talent into a fine finished product.

“You know he’s had some dang good linebackers, but he made them. When he got me I had never played the position before, but over the course of a summer I went from not having a clue what to do to being a pretty decent linebacker—and it was all because of him,” said Baird, who now coaches linebackers himself.

“Seeing the way he prepared and the time he put in, I just try to mimic what he did to prepare for games,” Baird added about his time working with Townley. “It was cool just to reminisce and be around him, listen to him tell great stories, but really it was just incredible getting to see him work.

“I’m incredibly grateful that I got to play for a man like him, and I think every former player of his that you ask would say the same thing about the kind of man he is. He’s one of the greats.”

That dedication to the work, to the preparation, to the grind, however, is ultimately what led Townley to decide that, after nearly four decades, it was time to hang up the whistle and move on from coaching.

“I told Coach (Dustin) Goodwin when he got hired (last year) that at the end of the year it was probably going to be the end for me,” Townley said. “I was feeling tired and being out in the heat on the turf every day took a toll.

“I only know one thing: I can’t go out and halfway do something. I’m going to give my best. And that’s something else my dad taught me: If you’re going to do something, you do it well,” Townley added. “You always give it the best that you’ve got. That’s what I required of my players, and I’m no different. I can’t ask them to go out there and play hard for me and then me not work hard for them.

“So, just the grind, after so many years of trying to be the best I could be and giving everything I had to my coaching staff and my players, it just got to a point where I didn’t know if I could still do it the way I’ve always done it, you know—didn’t know if I could keep up the same pace.”

Needless to say, Townley had a remarkable career at Russellville. But, in an era where assistant coaches, especially now, might stay two or three years at one school and then leave, the most remarkable thing about Townley’s coaching career might not be its success or longevity but the fact that it was all at one school in northwest Alabama.

“I had a lot of opportunities to go other places, but the opportunity here at Russellville to work with good kids, good athletes, was important to me. The people I worked with—I really enjoyed coaching with the people I coached with and enjoyed teaching with the people at the elementary school. But the main reason is my family,” Townley said. “A lot of people move around, but I didn’t feel like I would be doing my family right by picking up and moving just trying to work up the ladder.”

Townley’s wife, Diane, also worked at Russellville for many years, teaching math at RMS. She retired at the same time as her husband. Their two children, Derek and Taylor, both graduated from RHS, too—Derek in 2006 and Taylor in 2012.

“I was happy doing what I was doing. I didn’t want to uproot my kids; they made friends and liked it here. We loved it here,” he added. “And I guess that’s the main thing: I really loved it here, and I don’t think I could’ve gone anywhere else and gotten into a better situation. I loved everything about what I did.”

In retirement, (although Townley said he was rehired as a P.E. aid at RES—“I’m still up here getting to do what I love.”) the former assistant coach said his focus—still now as it’s always been—is his family. He’s got four grandchildren now that he enjoys spending his time with. Townley also said he’d like to spend more time playing music and performing with his band Rewind.

But even though he’s stepped away from the sidelines, there’s no danger of him stepping away from what kept him around Russellville for all these years. And while his schedule might be dictated more by his grandkids these days, he said, he still plans on coming out to watch the Golden Tigers from the stands—as strange as that may feel.

“Over 38 years I coached in a bunch of ballgames and coached a lot of kids, and I’ve loved every minute of it. Loved every kid I’ve coached and they know if they ever need anything they can call old Coach Townley and I’ll do my very best to help them,” Townley said. “I’ve enjoyed coaching with everyone I’ve coached with and worked with and really appreciate them.

“I knew when I started there would be a day when I’d step down from doing this great thing that I’ve loved all these years, but you’ve just got to try to move on,” Townley said. 

“To be honest, I haven’t missed practice near as much as I thought I would, but I know when the Golden Tigers trot out of the tunnel on Friday night it’ll feel different.”

Tim Townley coaches up a couple of his linebackers (including the author) during a Russellville football spring game in 2011.