Woolfolk updates next steps for football, AD hires
Mike Chastain and Justin Rogers, the previous two head football coaches at Jones County High School, have guided the Greyhounds to arguably their greatest success with a combined three quarterfinal appearances, two semifinal trips, along with the three region titles with Chastain at the helm.
Now, the challenge turns to finding the coach to match, if not surpass, that success.
“We’ve been fortunate to have Coach Rogers and Coach Chastain here,” said JCHS principal Dennis Woolfolk. “They have shown us a level of coaching and football that we have just become accustomed to.”
Now, in the month of February, a time usually pegged for looking ahead to spring football, is now filled with a search for both a head football coach and athletic director following the resignation of Chastain and Chad Alligood.
Of the two openings, Woolfolk says that the football job is without question a top priority.
“We need to go ahead and get on that that so we can get a quality coach in here. I’m sure there are a lot of coaches interviewing all over the place that are interested in moving on or moving up, so we’ll look at that over the next couple of days,” Woolfolk said. “We’ll look at the candidates and kind of filter out who we think will be the best fit for our program and carry this program on.”
So, what makes the job as head football coach of the Greyhounds attractive? Ask Woolfolk, a former JCHS student-athlete and coach, and he’ll quickly tout multiple reasons.
One of them? That the Greyhounds are what’s becoming a rarity in high school sports in the middle-to-large classifications. Unlike schools in Houston, Henry or even Baldwin counties, JCHS is the only school in the county. That means, within one school system, there is no other competing program to go against.
“The biggest thing, not just for football but for sports in general that attracts a lot of coaches is that we’re the one high school in the county,” Woolfolk said.
But that’s not the only selling point of Jones County, according to Woolfolk.
“Another is the size of the support that we get from the community. Football, especially on Friday night, if that does not excite you, you’re not in the right place,” Woolfolk said. “So, all of that really attracts, just being able to focus on our feeder programs and two middle schools that feed into it. You don’t really have to compete with another school nearby for players; that’s an attraction.”
The hope, says Woolfolk, is to line up a new coach sooner than later.
“Of course, we look for the best football coach that we can find, and within that, there are a lot of boxes to check — a great leader, someone that is going to teach more than football, someone with integrity, someone who knows football and someone that’s hungry and driven not just to accept the Jones County football program for where it’s at, but to take it to greater heights.”
As for Alligood’s replacement, Woolfolk notes that he and the school’s five assistant principals will jointly fill those duties in the interim before a new athletic director will come aboard, a task that will move to the forefront following the hiring of the next JCHS head football coach.
“As soon as we get the football coach on the field, that’s the next task. I think it’s so important to get someone in these positions. You want it as soon as possible, but you also don’t want to rush it because you want to have right fit,” Woolfolk said. “Coach Chastain and Coach Alligood, from the time that I worked with them, in my opinion, they did a great job. We’ll look for two more people to come in and do just as well as they did, if not better.”
