By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

BAY ST. LOUIS — St. Stanislaus has filled the last open prep football head coaching position in the “Southern Six”.
It was announced by the school on Wednesday afternoon that Tate Thigpen will take over as Rock-A-Chaw head coach after serving as offensive coordinator at SSC last season under then first-year head coach Tim Lala.

Thigpen came to Saint Stanislaus from Sebastopol High where he was also the offensive coordinator. He previously was the head coach at Glencliff High School in Tennessee. Thigpen earned his M.A.T. from Belmont University and has 19 years of teaching and coaching experience. He currently teaches Government and World History at SSC.
He was at the helm of a Rocks offensive unit that rang up a 9-2 record before losing in the second round of the Class 3A SSouth State playoffs to perennial state power Noxubee County which eventually went on to lose in the state championship game.

Thigpen’s offensive unit averaged just over 31 points per game last year.
Lala, in somewhat of a surprise, stepped down at SSC after that lone successful season in December.
He announced his decision on social media, saying, in part, that he was leaving due the fact that his wife had recently given birth to their second son and that the toll of commuting from one end of the Mississippi Gulf Coast to the other end every day was too much from him to continue to do with two small children.
Lala still made his home in Pascagoula, where he was a part of the staff at Pascagoula High for several years before taking the job in Bay St. Louis at SSC last year.
He has since landed at St. Martin where he’ll be the new offensive coordinator under Yellow Jacket head coach Ty Smith. Lala was in his second stint as part of the SSC football program after serving one year as an assistant for the Rock-A-Chaws in 2014.

Lala came to SSC after spending three seasons as the special teams coordinator, defensive backs coach and strength coach on the Pascagoula Panther staff under veteran head coach Lewis Sims.
The 2014 team that Lala was also a part of, went 11-4 overall and lost to Noxubee County in the Class 4A state championship game.
“Humbled and incredibly excited to get to work with Ty Smith, his staff, and the young men of St. Martin football!” Lala said, on social media.
Thigphen becomes the ninth head football coach at SSC in the past 24 years.