Winegarden sets vision for AHS football program at 'Meet the Coach'

This article by Druw Giamalva first appeared in The Sand Mountain Reporter on June 14, 2025.

The Albertville High School Fine Arts Center hosted the ‘Meet the Coach’ event on Monday evening. The event allowed the Albertville community to get to meet and chat with new Aggie head football coach Adam Winegarden. During the event, Winegarden spoke on numerous topics that included his mission and vision for the program, his expectations and the standards that he expects student athletes to uphold. 

Introducing Winegarden to the packed crowd was Albertville High School Principal Steven Hudgins and Albertville Athletic Director Dr. Vohn Enloe. 

“We left our visit with Coach Winegarden deeply impressed. Not only did we love his plan, but we loved his heart. He spoke about pushing our young men to limits that they didn’t even know that they had. At 3:23. I remember the time exactly, Coach Winegarden called me and told me everything that I wanted to hear. He told me ‘let’s go Coach, I accept the position’. We were immediately excited, and my mind went directly to our senior group. This is a perfect group to set a standard to do what you want to do. We are excited for that group of seniors to be able to work with Coach Winegarden,” Hudgins said. 

“We are excited to add Coach Adam Winegarden to our Albertville High School family. Coach Winegarden brings a wealth of experience and a proven track record of success. Most recently, he spent the past year coaching at Troy University following three seasons at Tuscaloosa County. Prior to that, he led Auburn High School for six seasons where his teams compiled an impressive 56-19 record and made a State Championship appearance in 2020. He is not only an excellent coach, but he is also an excellent role model for our student athletes. We look forward to the future of Albertville High School football under his guidance,” Enloe said. 

Before returning to high school football coaching, Winegarden wanted to make sure to find a school that would’ve worked not only for him, but also his family. 

“For me and my family, we wanted a place that was going to be a great place for us as a family. It was going to be in a great school system that was driven about the right things and was driven for excellence. When I first met Dr. [Bart] Reeves and he was able to talk about the vision of this school and when I met Mr. Hudgins, I want you all to realize how blessed you are. You are blessed to have men in leadership that care as much about this school, the community and the people attending here to provide so many wonderful things. Their vision for this that made me feel like ‘I want this for my family’. This is a place where I can see my daughter thriving and I can see my daughter having a great school experience. This place is headed in an unbelievable direction,” Winegarden said. 

Winegarden expressed that the theme of his team will be about being one unit, one team and one heartbeat. 

“This year’s theme is just the simple word of ‘one’. That means we are all moved in one direction. We are one unit, one team, one heartbeat, one community moving in one direction. We don’t care what anybody else does. All we care about is what Albertville does. There’s one way that’s going to be the Aggie way. It doesn’t matter what has happened in the past, one year ago or two years ago. Everything is on a clean slate right now and we are only focused on where we are right now in this moment. We want to take the right steps one day at a time,” Winegarden said. 

The program mission for Albertville is to develop the ‘whole’ player, as they aim to positively impact every area of their life in a team atmosphere. 

“Our mission is to develop the whole player. Everyone in our program is on a mission to do that and we are going to do it in a team environment. We want to help our players live and lead a life of victory. We want our players playing for a lot of people. That means a lot of people care about our program. It means we are connected, and they’re connected in a unique way. We want to create a spirit that makes our community proud of our football. We also want to put a product on the field that inspires you to watch them. We want to put a product on the field that you want to come back every Friday night and watch this team play football the right way,” Winegarden said. 

For coaching expectations, the Albertville football program will follow the 3 C’s: character, competency and commitment. 

“Number one is character. We gotta have guys on our staff that are good examples for our boys to see. They learn by what they’re taught, they learn by what behaviors are encouraged and they learn by what they see. Our examples are the most important thing we’ll give the players. I don’t expect all of our coaches to know everything about the game, but great coaches have a hunger to learn. The best, Nick Saban, is still trying to learn more football. We got to have guys eager to learn more. We also have to have guys who are committed to the mission of the program. If we commit to the right things, ego goes out of the way,” Winegarden said. 

The Albertville Aggies will begin the Adam Winegarden era on August 21, as they travel to face off against the hosting Arab Knights.