[Music] and hello again everybody uh Chris Hughes Carolina preps coming to you it’s been a while since I’ve been on one of these shows with you guys but I wanted to um bring on um a coach from the eastern part of the State uh that that I think uh deserves definitely um some recognition to getting on here uh coach Jonathan bird White Oak uh man you guys are six and one on the season uh but the the record and and the the body of work that I’ve seen your teams put forth the past two or three years after what I thought was a major rebuild when you took over White Oak has been nothing less than a a remarkable and I just want to get on here and talk some football with you if you didn’t mind coach got a great group of kids you know been fortunate enough to uh you know coaching my alada so you know we felt like we could get it going uh given the time you know unfortunately the first couple years we ran into hurricane Florence we lost 90 days of school in a whole wing of our of our school building the next year hurricane Dorian and then the pandemic season so it put us a little behind where we thought we would be um but I I’ve been fortunate enough to have good administrators and I’ve got quality coaches and really great kids so it’s helped really get us on track well I let’s just start right there we we’ll get back to you how how good your team’s been in a second uh you know I’ve coached in the state I I talk to coaches every day you know that has been my mission I guess in life for about the past 15 years or so is talking to our football coaches um tell us how important it is to have a solid Administration and coaches not only that buy into your philosophy as a head coach and help you implement it but also having coaches in the building and continuity of a staff how important and really how vital is that to a program for a head coach to have well I mean it’s a top down thing if you’re administrator and you do not have the same views and the same values it’s really hard to get a program going in the direction that you want it to do um I was lucky enough to be hired by Dr Dr Christopher Barnes who’s now at the County office level and you know he gave me uh the tools I needed to try to rebuild you know he helped me you know get coaches in the building he helped me you know try to get my kids into weight training and do what we needed to do and he’s since moved on and uh Jocelyn Cassidy is now my principal and she’s she’s kind of continued that they they trying to give me the tools I have a great athletic director and Chris Grimes um heck of a basketball coach and has C me into helping him with basketball for the last seven years but uh it it’s been it’s been a pleasure you know to have everybody be on the same page and you know no fighting over athletes we share our athletes I mean pretty much my whole football team plays basketball uh you know they all run track it’s been a blessing to have guys with similar visions and you know you can’t overemphasize the value of having coaches in the building you know the goty it’s the day-to-day stuff that people don’t understand that football coaches have to do with painting the field cutting the grass monitoring grades uh dealing with discipline driving a bus on Friday nights I mean there’s a lot more that comes to it and when you got those guys in the building they understand the process one thing that I wanted to um you know you say you can’t over uh emphasize you know the importance of those men in the building and and and there is no question about that uh but I also looked at your your record since you got to White Oak you can’t overemphasize just how much you’ve meant to that school and and the success that you guys have looked at and I’m kind of scrolling through our our Kina preps team pages and you almost have to go back to the 90s and then way before that back into the 80s and 70s before you seen some uh sustained success at White Oak and yet here you are seven years into it the past five years have been pretty solid and and you know I I got online and looked at some highlights and looked at some film of your team this year and and you’ve got a full-fledged Bonafide uh top 20 almost top 10 team in North Carolina right now and uh how how you did that that’s one of the reasons we’re talking about it’s remarkable because I think you know and this is something I was going to touch on with you but I feel like football fans and just the general public in North Carolina sometimes they lose track of some of our really good teams in eastern North Carolina and it’s easy to understand you got your big population bases and you know in the middle of the state the triangle the Triad the Charlotte region and the state’s almost 600 miles long east to west so I can understand it from a fans perspective but when you travel like I do and you see some of these teams you know the havlock the Southwest enelow the the newberns you know the Jacksonville high schools right there in your own County that are so good uh for you to start to to rise above the crowd and and that group that that tells me you guys are really doing something special and you know that that’s kind of why I’m I’m having this conversation because you know just trying to understand the house and why and and what you’re doing to to Really s make this sustain change well we we really started with I tell people this I recruited the whole school when I got there I mean I literally if if you were a male who was interested in remotely in football you know that’s where we started once you got the numbers up the athletes were always there so long as we build enough uh sustainable stuff in the weight room you know I I’m powerlifter by Nature previously I mean I I’ve lifted that that Arnold multiple years I mean i’ I’ve kind of done been there done that um and so I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve got myself in there and I’ve got all my kids in weight training not necessarily in one class but throughout the day and then the rest of the population that is in those weight training classes or guys who like to LIF so it’s been just a good culture of being able to strength train speed train and buy into what we’re selling as a program um you know and then it helps that once you start finding a little success success is uh contagious and everybody wants to be a part of it and the numbers keep improving uh you know we we’ve got over 1100 kids in the school so we’re a good size 3A program uh you know and it’s it’s we’re kind of blessed in Avenue that it’s a blessing inter a curse I should say really you know really transient community that it is Jacksonville North Carolina uh but you know the Marine Corps mentality often drifts down to these kids and so you know the commitment levels and to buy in it’s always been there it’s just took some consistency and like we talked about earlier from the top down you know having administrators that were really that emphasize the importance of a good athletic program right oh there’s no question uh that that they’re buying into your philosophy and and what you’re doing from a leadership perspective as the head coach and administering the program is working uh but we both know former coach myself that you can’t win without some dudes without the athletes on the field and and you’ve got a pretty good crop of some guys I look at your quarterback he’s a a junior dual threat kind of guy I can run the ball throw the ball and Joshua Smith and then um of course the running back I mean you can’t deny when you look at film he just pops out there and says hey look at me and um senior running back uh Trey magio I think I got that right you got it you got it those are some guys on offensive field that you know as a defensive coach you’re gonna have to account for those guys yeah he’s he’s an impressive kid and you start keying on him Josh can really P you and the the impressive part and the the we’ve only really been in in two kind of slugfest games Jackson will got a better of us and you know we were really really proud of the effort we really had a chance to win they stopped us on fourth down in the red zone right there the end of the game um but we have some Playmakers at receiver that that me as a football coach has to do a better job of getting their ball in their hands but Trey keeps breaking 60- yard touchdown runs it’s it’s hard to to get the balls in their hands um so you know we’ve got weapons we’ve got weapons all over the place we got a senior heavy offensive line uh you know there’s four seniors up front and you know would have been five we we lost a you know four-star offensive lineman his dad got orders to Oklahoma so he’s uh is at a fort in Fort Seal Oklahoma at Elgen High School uh and so but you know we said blessing and a curse we had a young man move in uh Javon Alman who’s 63 and some change 290 lbs and he’s only 15 uh so he’s playing left tackle for us so those guys do good job of getting you know their big bodies on other bodies and giving Trey an Avenue to run the football and you know Trey tre’s done his work and you know he comes from a long line of you know really athletic family really athletic household his brother’s uh you know getting carries at North Carolina Central as a red shirt freshman um you know I suspect that my phone will continue to ring for a while for Trey I’m sure well you know you can’t win it on offensive long and you i’ I’ve seen some look like to be some really senior heavy guys on that defense as well Nick Johnson uh ke stand out and also just a secondary in general I think I counted nine or 10 interceptions on the year I mean it it looks like all in all that defensive side of the ball is really working well for you yeah we we’ve got some talented guys Nick Johnson’s already committed to Elon uh you know he’s a he’s a large rangy defensive end he’s 63 235 pounds can run you know physical at the point of contact uh Kean Hall is kind of one of those diamonds in the row kids uh you know he played behind a kid who was a 300 and some career tackle kid uh so you know he was a little slow to start the year but man he just really come on and played well uh you know we got four guys up front that we’re really pleased with uh Chris jarm uh already has uh two small school offers right now and I wouldn’t be surprised if some bigger schools don’t don’t pick up later in the year and then you know our back half we returned we actually returned the whole back half we returned the whole secondary but we moved one guy outside linebacker so we have kind of a a newer guy playing uh free safety but the two corners are returners one’s a fouryear starter and Jameson Aila um you know he’s big four a corner I mean he’s 61 you know with long arm long limb so you know it really helps us and you know D line gets so much pressure up front that you know gives us the opportunity to ball hwk a little bit wow well um again you know you look at the records six and one with that that one hookup against Jacksonville a game that again that you you guys probably I know you as a coach probably feel like you’d love to have that one back because I think that you guys could easily be sitting here undefeated as well uh and and again you you’ve got you’ve got some tough ones coming up but I think that your resume speaks well uh as you finish out strong in this regular season and look forward to the playoffs uh before I let you go though you know I I kind of reason I’m getting getting you on here and I’m getting a bunch of other coaches on here is just kind of introduce you to maybe some people in the state that don’t know you who were some of the influences and the coaching world uh that kind of put their stamp on Coach Jonathan bird and and kind of LED you to to be the the man that you are today as a coach well I played in high school obviously I played at w High School I played for Robbie Ellis who if you look back at at at those records on Carolina preps you’ll see he he had a pretty good run there at White o High School won uh won a conference title one year and went 11 and two with only two losses being the havlock one year um as a player so I mean he really we really do a lot of things very similar to what he did when I was a young player and then I was blessed to play for Jim Cort at methods University was you know coachy was the alltime W coach at in Methodist history um was a great man uh great organizer great motivator that’s really served me well and uh my offensive line coach in college Carl thunderberg uh uh he was an individual let’s just say it that way he was a very intense guy and you know that’s really carried over in how I coached the offensive line uh I really just mimic a lot of things that he taught me and then uh you know my first coaching stent was back actually back at White Oak under coach Bob Blick um you know I really learned a lot about how to run a weight room with 40 50 kids from him and it’s it’s it stays true I mean I tell people he’s one of the best guys I’ve ever seen running a weight room as far as organizing and training and going so I’ve been blessed to be around a lot of great minds and then I I’ve have you know two guys on my coaching staff now my offensive coordinator Derek Savage uh you know he kind of keeps me honest and does more than just letting me run the football because that’s really all I ever want to do um and then my defensive coordinator is Sean Jones Sean was actually the linebacker coach at Methodist when I was a player there um and he’s been my defensive coordinator from the start so for the most part this coaching staff has actually almost all been together from from the start of uh my time here and so you know I get a lot of influences uh you know when I was a young coach I traveled around doing the Sho combines when that was a thing with Jim Bob so I learned a lot from him uh you know some good some bad Jim Bob would agree probably that too um you know so it’s been a it’s been I’ve been around a lot of really good Minds in the game of football and both from the strategy standpoint and the motivation standpoint right one last question and and kind of you almost led into it uh but I’m gonna ask it anyway um you know eastern North Carolina football for decades and decades and decades seemed to kind of come off of the Jack colie coaching tree and you know North Carolina football or or chip Williams and some of those guys you know it was three yards and uh a lot of buck sweep and you know fullback trap and a lot of wing te and you know eastern North Carolina football was really really really run heavy for a long time and then you mentioned some of these guys like Jim Bob Bryant you know throw Caleb King in there some of these other guys that have been an influx of of new ideas how has the style of football changed in eastern North Carolina since you began your coaching career versus today because I know here in the west and in different parts of the state you know it went from you know when when you and I were coming up you know eye football and power and run ball and now it’s just everybody wants to spread you out have you seen that same changes in eastern North Carolina absolutely uh you know don’t get me wrong if you’re in dup County you’re still going to line up and run run the wing te but you know everybody else’s I mean even even your Jackson of the world who you know they’re twins open but they’re still they’re running you know midline and triple and things of that nature it’s really just coming kind of Full Circle we’re all just running the same stuff it’s just out of gun now um and a lot of that is to keep it exciting for the players I mean to a degree that really you know you get your basketball athletes that you might not get if you line up in three three yards in a cloud of dust all the time I mean don’t get me wrong we still get double tight into the wishbone from time to time when you know sometimes you need a mentality type play or series and and that’s that’s part of it but the game the game is evolving it will always involv and and eventually it’ll come back full circle but I will tell you that it’s kind of my opinion but you run into a lot of these younger coaches that don’t know how to line up against things like a double tight Wishbone or you know they don’t they don’t understand that you know the influence pool and you know different nature of stuff that you get from an under Center play um so you know it’s nice to mix those things in there and it’s I’ve been lucky to to to learn a lot from a lot of people out we were having a conversation the other day um you know there’s a group of us that all played for Coach cyp uh Andrew Gurley at at Crow 10 Craig Underwood at hogard um uh Tim gratty at James Keenan uh teag at Reedsville I mean if you look at our our kind of combined record it’s like 30 something and four or something right now this year you know and it’s it’s a testament of being around great coaches and and that knowledge being p on and you know there’s nothing new Under the Sun everybody’s learning everybody’s changing everybody’s evolving and the game of football is still going to be the game of football you know get your athletes in space and see what happens yep absolutely uh one one last question you got a big game uh this week uh taking on Dixon High School uh Dixon’s one of those teams I kind of looked at them as well I think they’re a little bit sneaky better than their record shows I mean they they’ve played a brutal schedule and but they play hard every game so I don’t think that’s just going to be a show up and win kind of ball game oh absolutely not they are they are well cut coach Davis there he’s in year two um they are definitely in the weight room they’re definitely physical up front they run an offense that is very difficult to defend and they’re like 16 points away from being like five and one so you know it’s misleading their record is misleading they lost a shootout to West Carterette in like a 5149 game they lost the overtime game to tras they lost a very tight ball game one sport game to a North dupan team that’s undefeated um you know we are defin not going to take them likely uh we can’t do that um I’m hoping that you know we can meet force with Force up front and take care of business but they are not going to come in and just lay down yeah no kidding uh but hey good luck to that game good luck to the rest of the season I know we’ll probably see in the playoffs coming up down the road uh I know as a coach you’ve got that mentality one week at a time but guys like me I want to look ahead and uh think about what this uh November will look like but best of luck and I just appreciate you getting on the talk ball with me today coach absolutely enjoyed it absolutely and again guys uh coach Jonathan bird White Oak High School uh six1 on the season um get out there and I say this every week whether I’m on talking preps with the Charlotte Observer and I’ll say it here as well everybody go out there and buy a ticket support these schools they need your money go buy some concessions uh whatever it takes uh this is a tough time for schools and they need all the help we can get but uh coach bird I’m Chris Hughes Carolina preps and we’ll get you next week all right
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