Five Jackson high school football coaches visited with the Jackson Exchange Club during its weekly meeting at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, Tuesday.
Erit Turner, Jackson Central-Merry; Darby Palmer, Jackson Christian School; Scott Akin, Liberty High School; Tyler Reeder, South Side High School and Blake Butler, Trinity Christian Academy, gave those in attendance insight into the upcoming 2022 season.
JCM enters its third season with an eight game schedule before making a move to the varsity level in 2023.
“We have a nice, young group of young men who are eager to learn,” Erit Turner said, “We have three home games scheduled this season, but we’ll just appreciate any support and encouragement for the guys.”
Scott Akin said his Liberty Crusaders roster has grown to 44 players.
“Coaches are notorious for downplaying themselves,” but I want to (be) a little different … I want to talk about success … we have our numbers up,” Akin said, “Last year, we had 15 players … we lived through it, we learned from it – we grew.”
No one has to tell coach Tyler Reeder, who begins his sixth year as South Side’s head football coach, his Hawks will be tested early.
“This week we go to Ripley, (then) Huntingdon (home), Hardin County (home) and Trenton Peabody (home),” Reeder said, “We have 37 varsity players in a 4A football program who are 10th through 12th grade. On the flipside of that, I do have 31 freshmen, so I’m really excited about that.”
“I’m glad they are coming back out … kids are excited. They are coming back out for football.”
Blake Butler, who is starting his 12th year at TCA , enjoys his association with his fellow coaches, but knows strong football programs have a strong community behind it.
“We all interact with each other,” Butler said, “We’re all in our individual communities trying to build these kids up.
“We all want to win football games, we all want to be competitive, we all want to beat each other, but at the end of the day, it’s really rewarding to see kids come back … kids who are having success at the college level (and beyond).
“We get four short years with them and we want to impact them.”
For Darby Palmer, it may be his eighth year at Jackson Christian, but it seems like it’s still his first.
“I’m beyond blessed to be at Jackson Christian,” Palmer said, “We believe in family – there’s a lot of teams have that motto, but our family at Jackson Christian – we want to be the best version of ourselves and empower our students and athletes – serving others, caring for others – and we try to go beyond that serving the community, as well.
“We want to win on Friday night, but doing the little things outside football and our program … we want to transform kids’ lives.”
(PHOTO: From left Scott Akin, Blake Butler, Tyler Reeder, Trey Cleek – Exchange Club, Melanie Luckey, president-elect, Jackson Exchange Club, Erit Turner, JCM and Darby Palmer, Jackson Christian)
