David Prescott Retires as Central HS Principal

On June 30, Central High School principal David Prescott will retire after 38 years in public education including 15 years at Central High, the last five as principal.
Coach Prescott was eligible to retire eight years ago but loved the kids at Central High too much to quit!
His career has included teaching, coaching, or being an administrator at Woodlawn High, Tara High, Live Oak High, and Central High.
Prescott attributes much of his professional success to his coaches, administrators, and teaching colleagues.
Chief among his mentors is B.L. Fairchild, his football coach at Tara High School. When he was 20, Prescott married Coach Fairchild’s daughter Vickie!
B. L. Fairchild was famous in the Baton Rouge area as quarterback of Istrouma High’s greatest backfield with Billy Cannon in 1955. Even today, Coach Prescott holds Fairchild in the highest esteem.
“Both my parents died on Dec. 20, 1985, and B.L. and the Fairchild family really made me part of their family. He’s a great role model. He’s the man, that’s for sure!” Prescott said.
Growing up in Westminster subdivision in Baton Rouge, Prescott was friends and classmates with Bill Cassidy, Col. Mark Vaughn, Frank Spruill, and Carl DeJohn.
As a student athlete at Tara High, David Prescott was All-District in basketball three years and All-State in baseball two years. He scored 18 points a game in basketball and hit .434 with 11 home runs his senior year. After high school, Prescott played baseball at Southeastern.
After college, Prescott got his first big break when he was hired by Coach Kenny Guillot, then head football coach at Woodlawn High, as an assistant football coach.
Guillot is one of those great coaches Prescott credits with forming his character. Another was Kenny Almond, like B.L. an Istrouma graduate. His classmate from Tara, Carl DeJohn, was still another.
“Carl DeJohn is as good a coach as I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing how hard kids play for him. He has a no nonsense brand of football but the kids love him. He’s the greatest guy in the world, but when the bell rings, it’s all business!”
Prescott moved to Tara where he was head basketball and softball coach and assistant football coach. In 1982, his softball team won the State Championship.
After Tara, coach Prescott returned to Woodlawn where he taught, served as head track coach and was again assistant football coach.
When Live Oak had a vacancy for head football coach, Prescott applied, even though the school had a 33-game losing streak. He was hired and broke the streak, leading Live Oak to a 4-6 record his first year and 5-5 his second year.
After two years at Live Oak, in 1998, coach Prescott moved to Central High School for the first time. He was assistant football coach for one year and then head coach at Central for the 1999 and 2000 seasons.
In 2001, Warren Drake was principal at Tara and offered coach Prescott head football coach and athletic director. He coached Tara for the next six years, making it to In 2006, Prescott returned to Central as an assistant coach and after one year was named assistant principal, a position he held until being named principal five years ago.
One of the reasons he decided to get out of coaching was because it meant he couldn’t be with his kids on Friday nights. “When my son started playing football at Live Oak, I wanted to be able to attend his games. As a coach, I couldn’t but as an administrator, I could.”
When one of his former bosses, East Baton Rouge Parish Supt. Warren Drake, heard that David Prescott was retiring, Drake was effusive in his praise. When Drake was principal at Tara High in 2001, he hired Prescott as head football coach.
“Coach Prescott took Tara into the big time from 4A to 5A and did a splendid job! He was a tough taskmaster. He had high expectations for his teams, and they had to work, but the kids loved him! Above all, he taught the kids about character and how to live life the right way,” Drake said.
He said, “David Prescott is a class act in every way — as a teacher, coach, and principal! Of course, as a coach, he is part of the coaching lore of East Baton Rouge Parish.”
“He contributed so much to so many young people and helped them become the successes they are today!”
Coach Prescott said that on the day he was hired to be the new Central High School principal, he was called in by Supt. Mike Faulk and Assistant Supt. Sandy Davis. “They wanted to talk about goals for Central High. All of us agreed the No. 1 goal should be increasing our graduation rate!”
“I feel the graduation rate is one of our biggest accomplishments! We have a very demanding school but our graduation rate has exceeded 90 percent,” he said.
“I was blessed to have Nathan Corley as assistant principal. He’s the best in the business! He has a great demeanor, and the kids and teachers love him. He’s like Carl DeJohn. I would not want to be principal without Nathan Corley or someone like him.”
“Gigi Starns also went above and beyond the call of duty! She really did a great job!”
“Another accomplishment has been our switch to the block system. This has provided the kids with more opportunities to earn credit — 32 opportunities instead of 28. As a result, some seniors have as many as 26 college credits upon graduation. When we went to the block system, our faculty really re-focused on why we were here. It’s always been about the kids.”
“Supt. Mike Faulk was a huge blessing for me.”
“I had such great opportunities in school when I was growing up. Our kids today should have those same opportunities.”
So why did Coach Prescott decide to go ahead and retire from the public school system? “As education was evolving, I saw that I wasn’t dealing with kids as much as I used to. There are so many directives from the State Department. Technology is high in the priorities today, but technology is not the answer to everything. A website is not the answer to everything. Some things need to change. For one thing, we need a lot less testing. And I’m not big on meetings!”
When he announced his retirement, Coach Prescott also announced he will be assuming the same position at Central Private School. Why Central Private?
“There’s a need for an alternative form of education in Central. I want to be able to spend more time with the kids, and I think I’ll be able to do that at Central Private. It will allow me to get back to what I enjoy most.”
“At Central Private, we offer a good Christian education. It’s a family. At 4:30 the teachers are still there. Teaching is not an eight-hour day. We want to grow but we want to keep the mission of what we are doing.”
“There are 350 students pre-K to 12 or about 20 per grade. Lots of clubs and organizations, football, basketball, baseball, track, softball, and soccer.”
“Central Private will continue to do a great job for our community!” he said.