GHSF Daily asked Georgia head coaches to answer these four questions. We'll report from a different head coach each day.
Kevin 'Bull' Jones, Mount Zion (Jonesboro)
1. Who is/was the most influential person in your coaching career? "I have had the pleasure of playing for and working for some great men in my football life, and I gained something from each one of them to shape and mold my life as a man, and as well as a football coach. I played for coach Steve Shankweiler and Bill Cloer at Redan High School, and both men left a great impression. Coach Shankweiler had the energy and enthusiasm of 100 men, and it was contagious. We would run through a wall for him. Coach Cloer was a quiet leader that led by example. His attention to detail was unbelievable. We were the best-prepared team on the field every Friday night. Chris Beale, head coach at Avondale in 1992, gave me my first job and taught me how to be a productive role model to all players on and off the field. Ron Sebree from Columbia in the mid-1990s taught me how to bring intensity to practice and helped shape my aggressive defensive philosophy. Steve Davenport, the head coach at Redan in the late 1990s, was a master at in-game adjustments and attacking an opponent's weakness. Nick Davis, head coach at Riverdale in 2003, taught me how to create a faster practice tempo and how to instill mental and physical team toughness. I think that's why Riverdale has three starters in the NFL now. Coach Al Hughes, former Lovejoy head coach, is the most organized and disciplined coach I have ever been around. His patience with teenagers and parents is definitely on another level. He was so unselfish and giving to all that encountered him. Any man that could raise three daughters by himself and send over 100 players to college on scholarships at Lovejoy is an amazing person."
2. Who is the best Georgia player you ever faced? "As an assistant coach, I faced Southwest DeKalb's Quincy Carter and Douglass's Jamal Lewis and James Davis, but pound-for-pound, the best has to be Creekside's Eric Berry. As head coach at Riverdale in 2006, he beat me single-handedly 28-0. He had an 80-yard TD run, threw a TD pass and ran a punt back 88 yards for a TD. It made ESPN highlights because he took off from the 15-yard line and flew into the end zone. And he tried to throw another pass for a touchdown, but the receiver kept dropping it, so Coach [Kevin] Whitley called timeout, put Berry at wide receiver, and then Creekside's backup quarterback threw a 40-yard TD pass."
3. What is the best team you ever faced as a coach? "2012 Norcross state championship team. I was defensive coordinator at Lovejoy, and going into the game [Class AAAAAA final], I knew it would be tough to stop Alvin Kamara and Myles Autry, but I thought we had a great game plan. We contained Kamara the first half, and Autry was just a decoy then, but after halftime the Norcross coaching staff made some great adjustments and got Autry the ball. He scored, and it changed the game, in what I thought was one of the best state championship games ever played at the Georgia Dome. Norcross had a great staff, and their players refused to lose. I heard an SEC coach say during pregame warmups, 'I've never seen so many D-I ball players on the field at one time for a state championship game.'"
4. If you were Gary Phillips, the new head of the GHSA, what would be the first rule that you would try to change? "Absolutely nothing. I think the GHSA is doing a great job."
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