Meet Riley Niblett! Riley is the new special teams coordinator at Gainesville High School. Riley is originally from Birmingham, he is engaged to Olivia and is very excited for the GHS 2022 football season to begin.
“All the kickoff returns that you see, punt returns, field goals, field goal blocks; that’s special teams. We think of it as a culmination of not just offense, not just defense, but we call it ‘we-fense.’ So, the whole team comes together for that one unit and we just try to put the 11 best players out there that we can to give our team a chance to be successful, whether it’s kicking off and making a tackle or returning a kick or punting the ball and covering, that’s what we do,” he said.
We want to thank Coach Niblett for sitting down with us recently and telling us more about his life and love of Hall County.

Q: What inspired you or led you to your current career?
A: “Well, a lot of people get into coaching because they fall in love with the game. For me, growing up as the grandson of a coach, the son of a coach, the nephew of a coach, honestly I didn’t even know there were other jobs out there. Naturally for me, I graduated high school, had a chance to go walk on at the collegiate level as a long snapper. I was going to do that at Jacksonville State University, I just looked into mirror, had some self-awareness and realized I didn’t look like some of those guys running around on that field and I just jumped right into coaching.”

Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Hall County?
A: “I’m a big pizza guy, Atlas has been great, eating breakfast at Longstreet is something I did the first week I got here. Recess is great. El Sombrero over by Publix and the Collegiate Grill.”

Q: What do you like about the Hall County community?
A: “The authenticity of everybody here. There’s just a genuine spirit about the people that you interact with. Nobody’s trying to be somebody that they’re not, people are proud of who they are and where they’re from and that’s something exciting to join and be a part of and embrace.”

Q: What was the first movie you saw in the theater?
A: “The first one that comes to mind would have to be ‘The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl’ in 3-D, I thought that was awesome.”

Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: “I really want to travel around Europe. That’s something that I’d love to do. I’ve traveled everywhere in the country, but I haven’t left the country. My fiance’s family, her parents worked for the government and they’ve lived all over. They’ve lived in Sicily, Italy and Germany so that’s something that I want to do,  just travel to different places.”

Q: Who is one of the most interesting people you’ve met since you moved here?
A: “George Groover…he’s been around the program for 70 years. He’s been involved in every sport and he was out at spring practice every day. You talk about a guy that knows everything about the area, that’s him.”

Q: What would you rate 10 out of 10?
A: “I’ve got to go with my mom.”

Q: Who are some of your favorite teams and players?
A: “The Boston Celtics, I’ve been a fan since I was little…Jason Tatum is one of my favorite players on that team. I have a friend that works for the L.A. Rams as the assistant to the head coach, Sean McVay. I started rooting for the Rams because my mom is from Missouri and Rams used to be in St. Louis, I’ve never really had an NFL team that was nearby being in Alabama.”