In 1966, Maurice Edwin Carkuff graduated from Hickman High School in Tennessee. He received his B.S. Degree from Austin Peay State University in 1970. In 1971 he got his Masters degree in Education at Austin Peay. He later received his Masters certification in Administration from the University of Alabama-Gadsden. Following college, Carkuff served as a graduate assistant at Austin Peay in 1970. His first high school job came in 1971 at Hickman County Junior High School where he stayed through the 1978 school year. While there he was the head football coach and the boys and girls basketball coach. In 1979, Carkuff became the head football and boys basketball as well as the athletic director and assistant principal at Lamar High School in Meridian, Mississippi. He stayed at the school through 1984 before moving to Alabama. Coach Carkuff landed in Oneonta in the fall of 1985 as the head football coach and athletic director at Oneonta High School. Over the next 15 seasons his teams won 117 games and lost 59. They qualified for the playoffs eleven times and won eight area titles. His playoff record is 16-11 and his area record is a respectable 41-12. His 1985 and 1987 teams lost in the state playoff finals. In Carkuff's first four years at Oneonta his teams finished 49-6. Carkuff left Oneonta following the 1999 football season to become the offensive coordinator at Shelbyville Central High School in Shelbyville, Tennessee. He remained at the school for six years before landing at Cascade High School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee for a five year run as the offensive coordinator. Coach Carkuff was named the Class 4A Coach of the Year by the Alabama Sports Writers Association in 1988. | 
