By By BRIAN HAINES, sports Writer
ROBERSONVILLE — The purple South Creek Cougars sign hits you like a linebacker the first time driving up to what was formerly known as Roanoke High School.
Not a trace of the old red and yellow can be found on campus.
Ever since Bear Grass High School merged with Roanoke High School this summer, there is no doubt that it is the dawn of a new day in Robersonville.
Leading the Cougars’ football team into this new era is a young 27-year old Jeremy Jones, whose new team sports plenty of purple, giving the former ECU place kicker a familiar feeling to his new stomping grounds.
Jones is well aware that come the season opener he will be leading his team on a drive into the school’s record books, he is just hoping that history will remember him kindly.
“I guess going back to when I first got the job, I talked about it with my wife and I said for better or worse I’m the first one there, I’ll be remembered for that if nothing else,” Jones said. “I will either be the guy that got it all started or the guy who …”
Let’s just say Jones would rather be know as the guy who got it all started.
So far he is heading down the right path. Jones had 56 athletes show up for practice this week, and the team is set to have a JV football team for the first time in a long time.
Helping add to the enthusiasm of a new school and a new coach is the team’s new offense. For several years under popular former head coach Brian Paschal, who is now coaching at D.H. Conley, the Redskins ran the wing-T. Under Jones, the Cougars will run the entertaining triple-option.
“The guys seem to be really excited about the triple-option stuff,” Jones said. “We were slinging the ball around a little bit, going shotgun a little bit and under center. They just seem to be really excited. I have had several of them say they were really happy with the change.”
Jones went on to say he felt that he felt the wing-T was a good offense, but that the newness of the triple-option peeked the interest of the athletes.
While it is the first-ever football season for the South Creek Cougars, it is also the first-ever season as a head coach for Jones. Jones served as an offensive assistant at Nash Central, Southside and South Central before being named the Cougars coach. Jones said the goal for his first week of practice is to get his players in shape.
“We have been talking about conditioning a lot this week,” Jones said. “We run the county fair (a set of conditioning drills) before practice each day. The thing that I have been most impressed with is they have got better each day at it. The first night they were dragging and it was cool out here, but today it was extremely hot and they were a lot better at doing it. I was impressed.”
Aside from improved conditioning, Jones said he is hoping to have a two-deep depth chart by the end of the week.
“There are some positions that are starting to shake out a little bit,” Jones said. “By Friday we are going to put together our first depth chart and see where we are.”