After leading Southside to its first playoff appearance since 2005, Southside head coach Daniel Flowers has been named The Selma Times-Journal’s football coach of the year.

In his fifth season at the school, Flowers finally saw the turnaround he’s been seeking. Southside won only 10 games in his first four years, but the Panthers went 7-4 in 2016, including a 24-18 overtime win over Selma to begin the year. The win over Selma was Southside’s first win over the Saints since 2004.

“For as long as I’m at Southside, I think we can win a thousand more games, beat Selma again, but I don’t think it’d be as important as what we did this past year,” Flowers said.

Going into the game, Flowers downplayed his team’s chances against Selma. It made sense considering only one game in the rivalry had been competitive since 2007.

But in the locker room, he said it was a focus of the offseason.

“Sometimes you just get fed up and that whole summer we talked about it. What would it mean for them to beat those guys and was this going to be the team?” Flowers said. “It was like a relief that it could actually be done because at one point I was getting to the point thinking it was impossible.”

When DeQuan Johnson scored the game winning touchdown in overtime, Southside stormed the field in celebration. There was no denying how big of a victory it was for the Panthers, who had to rally late to force overtime.

“That one win, it pretty much resonated the rest of our season,” Flowers said. “Like, our homecoming game. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a homecoming game like that before … all that came from the Selma High Game. It changed the season because we could’ve lost that game and could’ve gone a different direction.”

Flowers said the positive momentum for the season really got going in May, when Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego raised $10,000 for the Southside program.

“They gave us the grant, helped us get new uniforms, new helmets and get our weight room together,” Flowers said.

Southside started the season 5-1, with its only loss to Pike County in that stretch. The Panthers won games against all their county opponents, defeating Keith and Ellwood Christian to go along with the win over Selma.

Southside ended up winning a complicated tiebreaker in class 3A, region 3 to make the playoffs as the No. 3 seed. The Panthers went to Montevallo in the first round of the playoffs, where they lost 45-18, but that couldn’t put a damper on one of the best seasons in school history.

“The parents, they were very supportive. We had a lot of tough times in the past and they could’ve easily said that Coach Flowers is not the right fit here,” Flowers said. “I always tell people, it’s a process. It takes time and I say things are not broken they are not broken in one day, so they can’t get fixed in one day. I’ve said from day one if I get time I can change it and this success this year is going to mean success next year and the year after that.”