Eric Godfree hired as head football coach at North Gwinnett

Godfree takes over at North after winning 70 games in nine seasons at Parkview

SUWANEE, GEORGIA – The North Gwinnett football program has its next leader.

Eric Godfree, who has spent the past nine years serving as the head football coach at Parkview, was introduced as the next head football coach at North Gwinnett Tuesday morning.

The announcement comes less than a month after Bill Stewart resigned from his position as North’s head coach to accept an analyst position at Georgia Tech. Godfree resigned from Parkview on Jan. 24th and was linked to the opening at North before the two sides made things official on Tuesday.

Photo courtesy of North Gwinnett Football Twitter

After compiling a 70-37 record over nine seasons and winning two region championships, it was not a move Godfree anticipated making prior to North reaching out.

“I definitely was not looking, at all,” Godfree said. “The easy thing in life is to stay put where you’re at, but God doesn’t call us to easy. It wasn’t long after talking to Bill Stewart and the AD Matt Champitto that I felt a big tug to truly investigate this thing about North Gwinnett.”

Godfree had to weigh his options before ultimately accepting the position at North. Godfree is a Parkview alum and also spent four years as an assistant at Parkview from 1999-2003. The Panthers won three state titles in a row during that timeframe.

The Panthers are also expected to be one of the favorites in Class 7A next season with the vast majority of their roster returning.

But even that wasn’t enough to keep Godfree from making the in-county move from Lilburn to Suwanee.

“Parkview is a great place and there are very few places that I could even think about leaving Parkview for,” Godfree said. “North was kind of always one of those jobs. It’s just a tremendous school, a tremendous community. When you look at the academics of this place and then all of the success of their sports, it’s pretty neat to see and want to be a part of. So all of that had some draw to it.”

After talking to current and former members of the North football community, as well as chatting with Stewart, Godfree said he knew it was the right move to accept the position.

“Everybody that I’ve talked to, from coaches on staff to people that have lived here at one time or their kids went to school here, they all talked so highly of North Gwinnett,” Godfree said. “It turned into something that I didn’t want to let get away.”

With Godfree set to take over the North football program, effective immediately, he said he’s excited to bring his coaching style to the Bulldogs. Stewart came from a defensive background while coaching at North and Godfree has made his bones on the offensive side of the ball.

Stewart coached at North from 2017-2022 and brought the program its first-ever state championship in his first season. The Bulldogs made the playoffs in all six seasons under Stewart and they reached the quarterfinals twice and the semifinals once to pair alongside their 2017 state title.

“Bill is a phenomenal football coach,” Godfree said. “What I told the boys this morning was that Bill has some strengths that are going to be better than mine and I have some strengths that are going to be better than his. We’re going to continue the success that he has built and hopefully take it even another step further. Which is going to be hard to do because he obviously had so much success.”

Godfree said he will greatly miss his time at Parkview, but knows that the program will be in good hands moving forward. The Panthers have not yet hired Godfree’s replacement.

“What I told the kids was that my whole goal and mission in life is to add value to people’s lives,” Godfree said. “I want to add value to our players, our coaches and our community. I definitely felt like we’ve been able to do that at Parkview. So I’m very thankful for that time. My message to them was that they’re going to get another great football coach that will do a phenomenal job. It’s kind of a goldmine for football right now. There are a lot of great players with good work ethic and it’s a good school. So I know they’re going to continue their success as good as ever.”