Aiken High fires head football coach Olajuwon Paige

Jan. 12—For the fourth time in a decade, Aiken High School is looking for a new head football coach.

Olajuwon Paige was fired this week after four seasons leading the Hornets. Paige, who quarterbacked the team to the state semifinals in 2004, said he was fired after refusing to resign.

Aiken went 6-30 (4-12 in region play) during his four seasons, reaching the playoffs in each of the last two seasons. Aiken's win over Hilton Head Island in 2021's playoffs was the program's first postseason victory since 2005, but this season the Hornets couldn't capitalize on the momentum built after a four-win campaign.

Now it's time to rebuild again for a football program that hasn't had a winning record since a 6-5 mark in 2015.

"First are foremost, we truly thank Coach OP for everything and his dedication, his time, his commitment to helping Aiken High School and to being a part of Aiken High School," athletic director Phillip Blacha said. "We wish him the best in all future endeavors. We do believe that he will be successful."

Paige said he was blindsided by the firing. He said he walked into a meeting expecting to talk about an action plan for the 2023 season, and he prepared a list of things he needed — more coaches in the building, a football plan and more support running the program.

Instead, he was told it was no longer his program to run.

"I was asked to resign, but I told them I wasn't resigning," he said. "I could've resigned, but I told my kids not to quit and finish what you started. I let my kids know I didn't quit, so they were going to have to terminate me."

Paige disputed the reasons he said he was given for his firing: lack of academics, when he said the team core GPA was a 2.8; lack of participation, when he said he took a program with 38 players before he got there and had more than 65 by the end of this season; a lack of community involvement; and behavioral issues with players.

"This right here is definitely something I didn't see coming," he said. "It's a shocker for me, and I still don't have answers on what made this decision. The answers I'm getting are definitely not adding up, because everything I just said answered those questions that were on my termination letter."

Blacha declined to comment on the reasons for Paige's termination.

Paige was introduced as the Hornets' head coach on June 25, 2019. The Hornets went 1-8 the previous season, and as Aiken's third head coach in four years he knew it was going to be a years-long process rather than an overnight fix.

Aiken didn't win a game his first season, and the Hornets' win over Midland Valley in the COVID-shortened 2020 season snapped a 16-game losing streak dating back to 2018.

The 2021 team went 4-7, earning a home playoff game thanks to a 2-2 record in region play. The Hornets beat Hilton Head Island to reach the second round for the first time since the season after Paige graduated, but they went just 1-10 this season and finished with four consecutive blowout losses and suffered from repeated self-inflicted wounds.

One of those loses was to North Augusta by a score of 49-7 on homecoming, the Yellow Jackets' 14th straight win in the series. Aiken allowed 70 points in a loss to Midland Valley, lost 50-0 to Lexington on a night the school honored members of the 1992 state championship team and gave up 63 points in a sixth consecutive loss to South Aiken in a rivalry the Hornets used to dominate.

Paige said he intentionally set up a difficult non-region schedule — four of the five opponents finished with nine or more wins — in order to raise money to help the program acquire the things it needs to compete at the highest level.

"I walked into this program with no funds, $436," he said. "Next thing you know, we raised up over $19,000 this year due to the support of the community, the guys who really supported the program, the real support of the parents. We were able to raise money due to the hard work of the kids."

Blacha said the goal is to interview applicants by the end of this month, then hopefully for Aiken High to have its new head football coach in February. He expects there to be lots of interest in the job due to the level of talent on campus, even if the program hasn't produced consecutive winning seasons since 2005-06.

Paige pointed to two missed offseasons — one his first year because he was hired a little more than a month before the start of the season, the other when COVID-19 hit and halted all school activities. He feels he was only given two true seasons to turn the program around and made the playoffs in both.

Aiken High returns a talented senior class that has attracted a host of NCAA Division I coaches to campus, and Paige said he wishes his former players the best.

"I don't know. I don't know. The truth will come out," he said. "The truth will come out — it wasn't behind no wins and losses. The truth will come out on hiring day."