Berrien coach relishes ‘opportunity to showcase what we’ve got’
Today’s Four Questions interviewee is Berrien coach Jackson Dean, whose team is 4-0 for the first time since 1992 heading into its home game Friday night against No. 4 Thomasville in Class 2A. In Dean’s first season as coach last year, Berrien won just its second playoff game this century and finished 4-8. Dean is a former South Gwinnett and Valdosta State wide receiver who was Cook’s offensive coordinator when he got the Berrien job in 2025. He has been on staffs at East Coweta, Lowndes, Hillgrove, South Gwinnett and Northwestern State.
1. So I guess word is out that this is Berrien’s best start in nearly 35 years. How did you hear about that, and what’s been the community reaction with Thomasville coming to town?
“We’ve got a guy here in town, his name is Skeeter Parker, and he works for the Berrien Press, and he used to be a teacher and coach here, and he keeps up with the records. He dug up the fact that 1992 was the last time we started 4-0. People are fired up around this town. They’ve rallied around this football team, and the players are so deserving of it. They’ve worked their butts off and done everything they could to prove that they belong. They went through rough patches early in their careers, and all their hard work is starting to pay off. Some have us ranked and some don’t, but this is a Top 10 game to us, and we get to host a team in Nashville that is known as a juggernaut. It’s a great opportunity to showcase what we’ve got and see what happens in the end.”
2. How would you describe your team in terms of style for those who haven’t seen you play?
“We’ve got a pretty gritty football team. That’s the word everyone throws at us. We’ve got 10 seniors, about 10 juniors and a bunch of sophomores and freshmen. So we’re pretty young, but our senior leadership is unbelievable.
“We’ve got a quarterback, Cash Perkins, who is a phenomenal athlete. He’s a great runner, but he can pass it, too.
“Cole Stone is our Swiss Army knife. He’s our slot receiver and safety, but he can play any position. He’s a running back and our backup quarterback. He’d play on the offensive line if you asked him.
“Jerrion Brown is another receiver. He’s a big, tall, lanky receiver who can run and is a big-time deep threat. He also starts at corner and is a versatile kick returner.
“Karter Money is our lone senior starting on our offensive line. He’s been a program kid who came into himself this offseason, and that’s been fun to watch.
“On defense, we’re young. At one point during the Irwin County game, in the third quarter on a pivotal drive, we had two seniors, five sophomores and four freshmen on the field.
“It’s a fun group to coach. We don’t have players on the sidelines complaining that they don’t get the ball enough or don’t like the position they’re playing. We just trot out 11 dudes who want to win for each other.”
3. What was the single most important thing you and your staff did to change the fortunes at Berrien?
“It was almost the reverse of what I thought it would be. I thought as a first-time head coach I was going to come into a place and lay down all these rules and be the enforcer and be hard on everybody and work, work, work. But what I found here was we had to get them to love the game. The passion for the game wasn’t there. So we had to figure out how we could get them to love it and make that B on their helmets mean something to them. So we’ve done little things to make it fun. We don’t keep them up here all hours of the day and night. We’re just expecting their best effort every time and we’ll get them out early. We try to keep them fresh. Once they got that enthusiasm for football and we gained enough trust in them, they would run through a brick wall for you and each other.”
4. Has there been a turning point in getting Berrien to where it is now?
“Beating Lamar County in that playoff game last year was probably the catalyst. The Clinch County game early in season last year was a big moment, too. We took them down to the wire and they threw a touchdown pass with about a minute left in the game. The kids and the community went away thinking, ‘We hung with Clinch County!’ We as coaches were thinking, ‘Yeah, we should’ve beaten them.’ But those and some other games made the players say we’re just as good as anybody else. Now, how hard can we work to stay on that level and be better than those teams? What do we as players do mentally and physically to get ready for these big-time games? That’s how they went into the last seven or eight months, and they’ve proven that hard work pays off in these first four games.”