David Rankin leaves Lee Academy to become head football coach, AD at Carolina Academy
Rankin won 2 state titles, played in four other championship games in second stay at Lee
Lake City – Even though he is the man who made the decision, David Rankin admits he may still be just as surprised as everyone else.
“I ain’t sure if it still ain’t a shock to me,” Rankin said of his decision to leave Lee Academy after 11 years to become the new football head coach, athletic director and assistant head of school at Carolina Academy in Lake City.
Rankin, who has been a football head coach in the South Carolina Independent School Association for almost 40 years, said Carolina Academy reached out to him just under two weeks ago and asked if he would be interested in the job. He talked to the school, things moved quickly, and Rankin decided it was time to give another job a try.
“I just decided this is somewhere I haven’t been, so let’s see what I can do here,” Rankin said. “I just decided if I was going to do something different now was the time for me to do it.”
This will be the fifth different school at which Rankin has been head football coach. However, at three of those schools he served two different stints. He started at W.W. King in Batesburg-Leesville in 1986 before going to Thomas Sumter Academy in Dalzell for one year in 1991. He returned to King for his second stint there before returning to TSA. He stayed there for four years and then moved on to Lee for his first stint in Bishopville. After six years, it was on to Kingstree and Williamsburg Academy for an 8-year stay. He came back to Lee for the 2013 season.
While enjoying success throughout his coaching career, his second tenure at Lee was ultra-successful. In the past nine years, the Cavaliers have gone 89-26 and played in six state championship games, including each of the past four seasons. They won Class A state titles in 2015 and 2022.
Lee just missed defending its state title this past season, falling to Patrick Henry Academy 35-28 in the title game.
Rankin, who coached in four other state championship games prior to his second stint at Lee, said whoever is hired to replace him at Lee will have far from a bare cupboard.
“The eighth- and 10th-grade classes are as good as we ever had,” Rankin said. “Whoever comes in here can come in and win.”
Rankin will be the fourth head coach at Carolina Academy in the past four years. He replaces Al Calcutt as both AD and football head coach. The Bobcats were 3-7 under Calcutt, the third straight 3-win season. for the program
However, in 2020, the Bobcats played for the AA state title under TJ Joye, now the sheriff of Florence County.
Calcutt will remain the Carolina AD for the rest of the school year as will Rankin at Lee through the end of May. However, Rankin will handle the spring football practice at Carolina.
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