Clay Fowler, a real estate agent with Town & Country REALTORS, visited with Grace Media Group – NEWS/TALK 101.5 FM, 93.1 & La Poderosa 105.3 – to discuss former Jackson Christian School High School football teammate Josh Aldridge, who will serve as interim head football coach at Liberty University when the Flames face the University of Toledo in the Boca Raton Bowl, ESPN – 6:30 p.m., today.

Question: Will you tell us about Josh Aldridge, the person, high school football teammate and now an interim head football coach at Liberty University?

Answer: Josh was as good of a teammate as you could ask for. Without a doubt, he was going to be the hardest working guy on the field. That of course included the games, but more importantly it was every day in practice, no matter what sport we were playing.

The work ethic that he brought everyday made everyone around him better. I can still vividly remember him as a freshman going 100 miles per hour on the scout team. The older guys may not have liked that too much, but he was pushing them to get better.

I have no doubt he still brings that same energy, and that’s part of the reason Liberty chose him as the interim coach.

Question: You were teammates when Jackson Christian School won a TSSAA State Football Championship in 2006.

But it was took a pretty incredible play in a quarterfinal game at Lake County to advance. Will you revisit the game at Lake County and a comment he made before you threw the game winning touchdown pass?

Answer: Yes, Lake County was a battle. It was a back and forth game where we eventually had ourselves in a position of down one point with a couple of minutes left to play.

We picked up two or three first downs and then after a couple of incompletions, it was fourth-and-10 from just over midfield. I don’t know who Josh stole the quote from, but it sounded cool when he said “Big time players make big time plays in big time situations.”

I dropped back and eventually found Rashad Rayner on the sideline running a comeback, who was the third option on the play.

The corner(back) tried to go for the pick instead of just making the tackle which then allowed Rashad to turn up the sideline for a touchdown. It was such a close play that the defender took Rashad’s glove off his hand in his diving attempt at the ball. As they say “The rest is history.”

Question: Did you have any idea coaching would be the path Josh would take, and will you be watching today?

Answer: I am not shocked one bit by where Josh has already risen to in the coaching ranks.

The combination of his work ethic, positive outlook, leadership, and knowledge of the game as a player himself will take him a long way in coaching.

Josh was an undersized defensive lineman in college that worked his way into an All Conference player. He was never going to be the biggest, strongest, or fast player out there, but he never let that slow him down. Instilling that mindset into your players is what makes a great coach.

I will absolutely watch the bowl game, tonight.

Question: Do the two of you stay in touch, and what has impressed you the most about the coaching job Josh has done?

Answer: We will off and on send some texts back and forth checking in. I think it was last year he was home for a couple days over the holidays and he came by the house to hang out with some buddies.

Last year during football season I noticed that the offensive coordinators for Liberty was my Offensive Coordinator my sophomore year at Ole Miss (Kent Austin).

I mentioned that to him in a text and the next day, I get a FaceTime from Josh. He’s walking out to practice, turns the phone around and there’s Coach Austin.

It had probably been over 10 years since I had spoken to him, so that was cool to get to catch up for a few minutes. That was a pretty neat gesture.

(PHOTO: Clay Fowler)