Published: April 03, 2008 04:25 pm            

Wells hired as new Jacksonville grid coach

By Don Wallace

sports@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Now the Indians can return to the business of winning.

Jacksonville school board members voted unanimously Thursday morning to hire Steve Wells of Mineola as the new head football coach and athletic director for the Indians.

Wells, 46, was present with his wife, Lisa and son, Brent, at the meeting and several members of the coaching staff he will put together in Jacksonville.

Wells was recommended by Champions Search Firm and presented to the board by Superintendent Stuart Bird. He will replace Randy Copeland, who accepted a position in the Arp ISD administration.

The coach will have a two-year contract with a salary of $90,000 per year. He is tentatively slated to begin work April 14.

“I feel really, really good about the decision to hire Coach Wells. He is very organized, he has a plan for everything down to the middle school. He wants to have a successful program in all sports, male and female. I am very impressed with him. We had some other very capable finalists. He just had the total packages who fit us as a football coach and athletic director,” Bird said.

“I talked with Mary Lookadoo, the superintendent at Mineola, and she told me great things about him. How he puts the kids first and how everyone in Mineola enjoyed working with him,” Bird said. “He’s on the same page with me on that and I am glad to have him here. We hope it is a long association, I know it takes three years to build a lasting program. It doesn’t happen right away. We just feel like Coach Wells is ideal of us right now.”

The board approved Wells by a 7-0 vote, despite comments by board member James Tarrant. Tarrant read a statement offering his opinions and those of fellow school board member Jimmy Brown that they supported Darrell Jordan as head coach.

“We support Wells since he was the choice of the majority. He is a good choice and we pledge to encourage him and support his program for the betterment of our community,” Tarrant said.

Board president Dr. Larry Folden told the coach he was looking forward to a long relationship with the coach, his family and staff.

The choice was not an easy one; board member Pat McCown said he had lost sleep over the important decision.

“I will bet I haven’t slept three hours since Monday thinking about this,” McCown said. “I think we made a good choice. We had some excellent choices. We feel like Coach Wells is a good fit for our community and we are ready to go now. The other coaches were qualified, but in a race someone has to win.”

Wells, 46, comes to Jacksonville from Mineola. High School. In seven years as a head coach in Mineola and Hooks, he has a 38-38 overall record. Teams he has coached have made the playoffs 13 of the last 17 seasons. Mineola made the playoffs in 2007 for the first time in the last 20 years.

He is a graduate of the University of Arkansas-Monticello with a degree in physical education and health. He coached at Mineola from 2006 to 2008 as head coach, was head coach at Hooks for five years and served on the staff from 1991 until he was hired by Mineola. He also was the receivers and secondary coach from 1988 to 1991 at Liberty-Eylau in Texarkana.

“I am just excited to be here. We will be moving to town as soon as possible,” Wells said. “I will start work next Monday with Coach Ford (Robert Ford, co-offensive coordinator) and get the staff ready. We need to have a staff in place as soon as possible.”

Wells said he will evaluate current Jacksonville coaches and see if they fit his plans for a staff. Along with Ford, he also introduced at the board meeting, Joe Currie, co-offensive coordinator; Mike Baysinger, defensive coordinator; and Gregg Armstrong, defensive line and special teams coach.

The coaches’ wife, Lisa, a former basketball/volleyball coach said she will be a classroom teacher in seventh grade math. Other family members include Brent,11, a fifth-grader, and Jaci, 17, an 11th-grader who was not at the news conference.

“I think this is a pretty area. Jacksonville has a lot of tradition. Steve is a great coach and he has been looking forward to this. He is ready for the excitement of a football season at the Tomato Bowl,” Lisa Wells said.

The coach was quick to point out goals for the program with a short-term goal of making the playoffs in football, but a long-term goal of competing for a state title.

“More important than wins is the positive impact this coaching staff hopes to have on the kids in the community,” Wells said. “We love the kids, we care about them. We want them to do well in life, not just athletics.”

Wells said he had already driven by the Tomato Bowl and was impressed with the deep and long-lasting traditions the community has for football.

“You talk to anybody, anywhere about Jacksonville and they bring up the Tomato Bowl and the burning of the J. Jacksonville is one of the best 4A jobs in the state. The program had a lot of success under Danny Long and we want to bring that success back. We want to rekindle the excitement,” Wells said. “Jacksonville has done a lot of good things in football, but a state championship is missing. We want to be contending for a state title.

“If we get every player giving 110 percent we will get better. We want to build a program the right way. We are kid-oriented coaches,” Wells said. “We also want to do well in all sports, not just football. I’m an optimistic coach and I hire positive, optimistic coaches. If you give negative thoughts or actions to someone, you get that back. We are all about being positive, the entire program.”

While Wells was not ready to go into too many Xs and Os for the football season. He did say Indians fans can expect to see a pro-style I-formation and one-back offense and a multiple 4-3 defense.

“It all starts with the offseason program. We’re going to be evaluating that when we start here. We won’t be changing anything right away, just seeing what is done. We like an offseason that features pulling tires, sprint training and hitting the weight room. We have to have the strength to go deep into the playoffs,” Wells said.

Getting a team into the playoffs is important, Wells said.

“I want players to get used to being in the playoffs, that special feeling. The more youngsters who can do that, the better our program is. We’re about winning with heart and desire and most importantly class. We are not going to be the kind of team which gets the personal foul penalty. We just want the kids to give us their personal best. If you do that, you are not a loser, you might be behind on the scoreboard, but you are not a loser. Those kind of kids will run through a brick wall for you,” Wells said.

“I am looking forward to getting the program going. I like that Jacksonville is a one high school town. Everybody who lives here is an Indian. I like that, I am ready to bleed blue and gold,” he said..

        

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