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MAIS Openings

TheAnswer

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TheAnswer All State

TheAnswer

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Filled:

Columbia - Joey Hawkins

Riverfield - Jeremy Foote

St. Aloysius - Walker Mosby

Clinton Christian - David Parker

Deer Creek - Will Rodgers

Central Holmes - Tommy Acy

JA - David Duggan

Benton - Jacob Carpenter

Amite - Bryce Bean

 

Open:

Copiah

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TheAnswer All State

TheAnswer

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1 hour ago, longhorn75 said:

Joey Hawkins is a home run hire here. The man can win. I'm surprised he wasn't asked to coach track as well, considering his reputation as a track master. 

Yep he’s already bringing in kids.

 

No track facilities; which is not what he is accustomed to. So doubtful he wanted that headache.

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longhorn75

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15 hours ago, TheAnswer said:

Jackson Academy is open.

Where did Blackwell go? Back to Alabama? 
 

honestly the past several years have been very weird for what we were accustomed to from JA. They’ve gone through four football coaches in ten years. I get it’s part of the business, but the turnover there is insane from a school that never really switched coaches much before this . . 

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longhorn75

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Agreed. All their success came from seasoned MAIS coaches. Maybe they can go hire a young coach, like Land from Lamar or another MAIS vet. 

 

To give Pogue credit, he was a good coach for JA. As head coach, he got them to the championship game his first season. I think but for the big Raider upheaval, he would still have had that team playing competitively. 

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Washed_Up_Athlete

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20 hours ago, longhorn75 said:

Agreed. All their success came from seasoned MAIS coaches. Maybe they can go hire a young coach, like Land from Lamar or another MAIS vet. 

 

To give Pogue credit, he was a good coach for JA. As head coach, he got them to the championship game his first season. I think but for the big Raider upheaval, he would still have had that team playing competitively. 

Pogue quickly realized JA is a much more difficult job than it appears from the outside and he never had his heart in the job. His early success was largely the product of sheer luck. The team that made it to the championship game was the last talented bunch of homegrown kids the school had. 

 

Blackwell was the best coach at the school in years. But he had to recruit numerous kids just to field a semi-competitive team. I suspect he figured out that turning JA around will take many years and a lot of work, and he decided that he would rather take on another challenge closer to home. 

 

There's a reason why JA has turned over so many coaches in the last two decades. Football (and baseball) is just not engrained in the school's culture. Athletic kids that attend elementary at JA and care about football or baseball leave to join more functional programs. Students and families that have attended JA for years don't know the recruits, there is no emotional investment, and ultimately, many of the top the recruits leave. It's a downward spiral.

 

For JA to have any sort of sustained success, the school needs to hire a young, smart, aggressive coach who is willing to rebuild the program from the ground up and who is willing to do what it takes to build relationships with families throughout the school. He needs to retain kids in the school. It is a long term rebuild.  

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longhorn75

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On 3/28/2024 at 11:52 AM, Washed_Up_Athlete said:

Pogue quickly realized JA is a much more difficult job than it appears from the outside and he never had his heart in the job. His early success was largely the product of sheer luck. The team that made it to the championship game was the last talented bunch of homegrown kids the school had. 

 

Blackwell was the best coach at the school in years. But he had to recruit numerous kids just to field a semi-competitive team. I suspect he figured out that turning JA around will take many years and a lot of work, and he decided that he would rather take on another challenge closer to home. 

 

There's a reason why JA has turned over so many coaches in the last two decades. Football (and baseball) is just not engrained in the school's culture. Athletic kids that attend elementary at JA and care about football or baseball leave to join more functional programs. Students and families that have attended JA for years don't know the recruits, there is no emotional investment, and ultimately, many of the top the recruits leave. It's a downward spiral.

 

For JA to have any sort of sustained success, the school needs to hire a young, smart, aggressive coach who is willing to rebuild the program from the ground up and who is willing to do what it takes to build relationships with families throughout the school. He needs to retain kids in the school. It is a long term rebuild.  

I respectfully disagree on the football and baseball culture shift. Football has always been a huge deal for Jackson Academy, especially with the coaches they had 20 or so years, ago. They were a perennial powerhouse when Hawkins and Sykes were there, and with Coach Blount and Shaw were very stinking good. Same with Coach Powell when he coached baseball there. Aside from the obvious migrations from the Jackson area especially the Ridgewood side, I think you can attribute the successes of other athletic programs to JA's success on the gridiron. Hawkins was able to develop his outstanding skill players because he had such a rock solid boy's track program, a strategy that contributed to his success at PCS as well.

 

I do agree that they need a young coach who can compete and knows the tools of success that we have seen out of Davis and MRA, and even the resurgence of Jackson Prep with Goodwin. I cannot emphasize this enough though, the new coach HAS TO KNOW THE MAIS. This has been an issue with a lot of these MAIS teams  that hire these out of association coaches who struggle with the program. There are exceptions like Black, Barnes, and Goodwin, but yeah.

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Washed_Up_Athlete All District

Washed_Up_Athlete

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On 3/30/2024 at 12:31 PM, longhorn75 said:

I respectfully disagree on the football and baseball culture shift. Football has always been a huge deal for Jackson Academy, especially with the coaches they had 20 or so years, ago. They were a perennial powerhouse when Hawkins and Sykes were there, and with Coach Blount and Shaw were very stinking good. Same with Coach Powell when he coached baseball there. Aside from the obvious migrations from the Jackson area especially the Ridgewood side, I think you can attribute the successes of other athletic programs to JA's success on the gridiron. Hawkins was able to develop his outstanding skill players because he had such a rock solid boy's track program, a strategy that contributed to his success at PCS as well.

 

I do agree that they need a young coach who can compete and knows the tools of success that we have seen out of Davis and MRA, and even the resurgence of Jackson Prep with Goodwin. I cannot emphasize this enough though, the new coach HAS TO KNOW THE MAIS. This has been an issue with a lot of these MAIS teams  that hire these out of association coaches who struggle with the program. There are exceptions like Black, Barnes, and Goodwin, but yeah.

Your post underscores the point. Blount and Shaw haven't coached at JA in two decades. Hawkins' last year at JA was 2008, and the school ran him off. Sykes had a couple of good early years, but he was ultimately asked to resign because the program was on a rapid decent (6-6 and 4-9 in his last two years). Weems, like Pogue, never had his heart in it and it showed. Blackwell was the best coach JA has had in two decades, but he left because he realized how difficult it would be to flip the culture.

 

In baseball, Powell did more with less than any coach in the state. And for his efforts, JA refused to pay him a bare minimum salary and forced him to resign. Then, instead of conducting a legitimate search for a competent replacement, JA hired an underqualified assistant. The program immediately tanked. Meanwhile, programs at Prep, MRA, and Hartfield are among the best in the state - public or private. JA's closest historical rival, Prep, is the best program in the state and many of the top players on that team are former JA students and kids that would have attended JA had the school treated Powell properly. Guess who hired Powell within 5 minutes of JA letting him go? Prep.

 

Two decades of mediocrity and mismanagement have taken their toll on JA. Nearly all of its homegrown and best talent has left to attend other schools with more functional programs. In this past year alone, JA lost two of its best returning players to other schools.

 

The school has been a cultural mess for years and JA can't recruit/scholarship its way out of the football/baseball hole. You can do that short-term in basketball, where it only takes a couple of players (see: Williams brothers) to win. You have to build football and baseball programs from within. 

 

Until JA gets a coach, AD, headmaster, board, parents, and kids who collectively care enough to flip the culture, JA will continue to be in the cellar of MAIS 6A in baseball and football. Weems, Pogue, and Blackwell believed it was too difficult and moved on. The next guy had better know what he's getting himself into, he had better be willing to get to work, those other vested interests had better support his efforts 100%, and everyone had better understand that it may take half a decade to turn things around. Otherwise, it's wash-rinse-repeat.

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