Tribute to Tennessee High School Football Coaches

 

October 6, 2022

Jack Daniels

NOTE: Jack played football and basketball at Spring City High School (Class of 1972). He played college basketball at Oral Roberts University before transferring to Tennessee where he graduated in 1983. His head-coaching career began at Soddy-Daisy (1988-1991). Additional stints came at Brentwood High School (1997-2001) and Ravenwood High School (2002-2003).

One of the first stories that came to mind when I was approached about this project was during my time at Brentwood High School. We were getting ready to kick off the 2000 season and were scheduled to play Page in the Williamson County jamboree on a Friday night. But we were also scheduled to start the regular season at Knoxville Halls the following evening in Week 0.

I had sent our first and second teams on to Knoxville on Friday, along with half of my coaching staff, and kept my freshmen, my sophomores and first year seniors who had never played football before to play in the jamboree against Page. Our main varsity team and coaches actually stayed in Pigeon Forge and I'm coaching in the jamboree with the rest of my staff. (Page Coach) Jackie Bennett had a pretty good team that year and they were taking it to us pretty good.


I was trying to get everybody into the game. I put a first year senior into the game at wide receiver, a position he had never played before. When he breaks the huddle, he comes over to our sideline. I knew he was in the wrong formation and I was telling him to go to the other side of the field.

Well, he goes to the other side of the field and stops about 10 yards from the offensive tackle. I started waving at him to move out, because he was too close. We were trying to spread the field.


The next thing I know, I look across the field and he's gone over and was standing on the sideline by Coach Bennett, out of bounds. About that time, Coach Bennett turns his head and looks at my player on his sideline and gives me one of those looks, you know.

I just started laughing and couldn't stop. We went ahead and ran the play with only 10 players on the field. After the play was run, I got another player into the game so I could explain to the player in question where he was supposed to line up. It was near the end of the game, but he got to play two or three more plays, lining up where he was supposed to be. Page ended up beating us two or three touchdowns, but we won the game at Halls the next night.

 

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