Former Ellwood Christian Academy football coach Trey Pike said Friday he has accepted a position with St. Clair County High School. He’ll teach physical education and will serve as the offensive coordinator for the St. Clair football team.

Earlier this month, Pike’s contract was not renewed at Ellwood Christian. The Rev. Gary Crum, who serves as chairman of Ellwood’s board, said the school was waiting on final enrollment numbers before making a decision on whether Pike would be back.

“It’s all going to depend on enrollment,” Crum said last week. “I just put the new hires on hold until we see what enrollment is going to look like.”

As it turns out, Pike won’t be back. Pike recently bought a house in Moody and will live only about 10 minutes away from St. Clair High School.

“It puts me close to my family and gives me an opportunity to learn from some guys that have been around the game for quite a while,” Pike said.

“It also gives me an opportunity to do what I really love to do. When you’re a coordinator or a position coach, you can coach … you can individually sit down with your kids more, versus when you’re the head coach and CEO you get strung out a lot more.”

Pike signed a one-year contract with Ellwood Christian when he was hired in April 2015. During his one year at Ellwood Christian, Pike led the Eagles to a 3-0 start before Ellwood lost its last seven games.

Pike said he learned a lot from assistant coach Duane McWhorter during his time at Ellwood.  In March, Ellwood Christian senior Rayshawn Simmons signed to play football at Kansas Wesleyan.

He said in the end, the uncertainty as Ellwood left too many unanswered questions and he thought his best option to move on.

“It’s hard to know what kind of money you are going to get and if it’s anything close to what you have [had],” Pike said.

“They had no idea what they were going to be able to do and when you’ve got one bird in the hand you can’t sit and wait for two in the bush.”

Crum said last week Darrell Walker is serving as the school’s interim head football coach.

If Walker ends up coaching the team, he’ll be the fourth different coach in four years for Ellwood.