MOULTRIE — It has been 10 years since Kevin Giddens was last an offensive line coach.

After a four-year stint as the Colquitt County line coach under head coach Jim Hughes, Giddens left to become the head coach at Coffee High.

After three years in Douglas, Giddens returned to Moultrie and has been an assistant principal since.

But Packers head coach Tim Cokely lured him out of retirement this year and after two weeks working with the ninth-graders and six days with the the varsity linemen, Giddens looks like he has returned home.

“I don’t know why I got out of coaching the offensive line,” he mused Monday following the Packers spring football drills at Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium.

“I’m having fun.”

Giddens was a popular member of the Packers staff from 1994, when Colquitt County its only state championship, through 1997.

Over the last six years, he refused to rule out a return to coaching.

When Jim Sauls left Cokely’s staff after one season of working with the offensive linemen, Giddens decided to come out of retirement.

The move has been greeted with nearly universal acclaim. Giddens says only that he will work hard and that he has a group of players who will do the same.

“I’ve got some big shoes to fill,” Giddens said. “Coach Sauls did a great job.”

Giddens has large job ahead of him. None of the players he is working with now was a full-time starter last season.

The Packers were expecting two players back on the offensive line, but Tony Key moved to Albany, where he is playing at Monroe High, and Brandon Coleman has been moved to defense.

Giddens said he is counting on his four seniors: center Matt Howell, tackles Torrey Edwards and Dwight Lewis and guard Isiah Bonner.

“One thing about them, they don’t mind working hard,” Giddens said. “We’ll be OK.”

Giddens said having two weeks of working with the ninth-graders before beginning the work of building the varsity line helped the transition.

The rest of the coaching staff is helping him ease back into coaching full-time and he said he has had only a few minor terminology problems.

“Things are coming back to me,” he said.

And although most of the men he coached with are gone, he has been reunited with John Redmond, who is working with the ninth-graders, and Chad Horne, who was an offensive lineman on the state championship team.

And Giddens sounds as if he is already forging a bond with his latest group of linemen.

“Through no fault of their own, these guys are stuck with me,” Giddens joked, then added, more seriously, “This is a good group of kids. They are making it easy for me.

“I’ve probably got the best job in America. I’ve got a great principal to work for during the day and a great offensive coordinator and head coach to work for the afternoon. I feel like I’ve picked up where I left off.

“It’s great to be back in the saddle again.”