DOUBLE DUTY DOOLEY: Head soccer coach Nathan Dooley reaches 250 wins at Perry High School with wins against New Hampstead

The 250-win mark is an accomplishment many coaches never reach, much less while leading two programs at the same time.

Nathan Dooley has coached both the boys and girls soccer programs at Perry High School for six years now, and after Wednesday night’s pair of wins against New Hampstead the Houston County native eclipsed 250 wins with the school.

Rewind to the early 2000s — Dooley never played soccer. In fact, he didn’t even play sports in high school.

Like many he took part in a myriad of athletics growing up but that stopped once he got to Warner Robins High School.

His time as a Demon was spent off the field, and after graduating in 2002 he pursued a teaching career. In 2007 he was hired at Westside-Macon where he met then boys soccer coach Brian Aplin.

“He asked me if I would come on board and be his assistant, and I told him I never grew up playing soccer. I played basketball, baseball, a little bit of football,” Dooley said. “He said, well, if you know basketball it’s a lot of the same tendencies and passing patterns and stuff like that, and he said he would teach me.”

Despite never touching the sport growing up, it was love at first sight for Dooley.

“[I] fell in love with the sport right away. Just the free flowing-ness of the game once it starts,” He said. “Other than changing personnel the coaching, it’s kind of on the players. There’s no timeouts…I just really like that about it.”

Dooley stayed on as an assistant for two seasons from 2007 to 2009 before taking over the girls program at Westside in 2010.

He accepted an offer to head Perry’s boys program in the 2011-2012 school year. The first fully recorded year on MaxPreps was 2014-15, which showed a decent 12-10-1 team that snuck into the playoffs and lost to Cairo 2-0.

They made it past the first round for the first time in 2018 with a 3-0 victory against Hardaway, but fell in a penalty kick shootout to Druid Hills in round two.

It wasn’t until he took over both programs that they started to truly see success.

Perry’s girls program in the MaxPreps era, pre-2021, struggled to say the least. Not once from 2015 (the first fully recorded season) to 2020 did they finish above .500. They also failed to finish with more than five wins even once; the closest they came was a 5-5 finish in 2020 after COVID-19 abruptly ended the season.

Perry parted with their head coach after that, but by October then athletic director Arthur Billings hadn’t found a replacement.

Dooley agreed to guide both programs for one year while they continued the search.

“Then that first year, I think we broke every school record,” Dooley said with a smile. “We scored over 120 goals on the season, we went undefeated in [the] region, we made it to the Elite Eight for the first time in school history. I guess the rest of that is now history as we’re on year six of doing both.”

The Lady Panthers’ 17-3-2 record was more wins than their previous four seasons combined.

Their season opener was a 10-0 demolition of Peach County. After Feb. 19 of that year they shut out six out of seven opponents. The one that scored was Howard, who lost 13-1.

A 10-0 final against Westover moved them to round two and a 2-1 win against LaGrange, as Dooley recounted, pit them against an Elite Eight opponent for the first time in program history.

Since then both programs have seen significantly more success, but the girls specifically have cemented themselves as some of the best in school history.

This year they’re hunting for a sixth straight region championship and itching to get past that Elite Eight record.

This much success doesn’t come without challenges, of course. The main one Dooley noted was doubling everything you’re responsible for as a coach, as well as the emotions of teenage boys and girls.

“It does present its challenges, but honestly it’s the players,” Dooley said on his reason to keep coaching both programs. “It’s the girls and the boys that we’ve had over the years, and their work ethic and their love for the sport and buying into that we do as a coaching staff and our philosophy.”

“It’s the coaches I surround myself with…the support from the admin at the school that’s allowed me to keep doing it,” He continued. “It’s definitely [also] the support I have at home with my wife and family, because without that I definitely couldn’t do it.”

Coaches don’t usually get caught up in accolades or milestones like win counts, but it’s come fast for Dooley especially since taking over both programs.

“When I took over at Westside as the girls coach I don’t think they had won a game in five years, and we won one game that year,” Dooley said. “I think it was first year when I took over the [Perry] girls when I hit win 100, and so over the last six years it’s gone from 100 to now 250. It’s more about the kids, less about me, but it is something that as a coach and school we can be proud of.”

“It means the world to me. Perry High School has been like a second home for me,” He said. “I never knew much about Perry, but the closeness of this community and the people that live here, it’s just an awesome place. It’s the reason why I’m still here and able to get to this accomplishment. So it means a lot to me, the program, and to this city, and I’m just glad I could play a small part in it.”