A little more than a year after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting that left 17 people dead, including assistant football coach Aaron Feis and athletic director Chris Hixon, Eagles football coach Willis May has resigned, May told the Sun Sentinel on Wednesday.
“It’s been hard to come to work with everything that’s went on,” May said. “I miss Aaron Feis every day, and I miss Chris Hixon every day. It’s been really hard, and I just needed a change. I needed a change for my soul.”
“I will always be grateful for the love and affection the community showed my family,” he added. “I will always wish nothing but the best for the whole community, Parkland, and definitely Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Want only the best for them.”
May said the shooting was the primary motivating factor for his decision to leave, and he said his players understood that.
“We’ve got a cemetery on campus that we have to look at every day, when it comes to the 1200 building,” he said. “They know I have to walk in my office and Aaron Feis’ desk is there without him, and on the other side Chris Hixon’s office is there without him. It’s hard. They understand.”
However, May did note that leaving now could be seen as hypocritical.
“When you teach all the time: Don’t quit, don’t quit, and then you’re quitting, I’m sure that’s hard,” he said. “But I don’t want them to think I’m quitting on them. I just need that change in my life.”
May said there was no singular breaking point where he decided he could no longer handle being at Stoneman Douglas, but that it built over the course of the year. “Every day” was the breaking point, he said.
“This whole year,” May said. “I mean, it’s been hard. But you come back every day for the kids. You come back because they need you. I said it a lot. It’s just terrible, it’s terrible, it’s hard every day. It’s hard to come to work, and you don’t want work to be like that, where you’re miserable.”
May was Stoneman Douglas’ coach for six years, going 33-26. The Eagles went 5-5 last year and missed out on a playoff berth. They ended their home slate with a tribute to the victims of the shooting where they retired Feis’ No. 73. An ESPN documentary followed the team over the course of last season.
May said assistant coach Quentin Short was named interim coach.
“He will probably get the job, I would say,” May said. “He does a wonderful job, so they’re not going to miss a beat.”
May was reassigned to a district administrative location in June of last year, for reasons unrelated to the shooting. But he was moved back to his old position within two weeks.
“I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t happy about the reassignment,” May said. “I felt like it was wrong.”
May said he is moving to Fort Myers to be closer to his parents, who live in the Gulf Coast. He said he is interested in coaching football there.
“If we learned anything from the past year, it’s that life’s short and you don’t ever know if you’ve got tomorrow,” May said. “So you better spend it with the ones you love because you don’t know how long you’re going to have them.”
alichtenstein@sun-sentinel.com