Published: May 15, 2008 07:35 pm            

Johnson making an impression in first spring

NEWTON — Notes, quotes and a thought or two....

James Johnson has only been on the job a week at Newton High School, but it seems he’s getting the attention of his players.

I’ve dropped in on a few practices and just sat back and watched. The first thing I see is he seems to be a pretty good teacher. The second thing is he is able to talk with to the kids in a languague they understand.

I saw him do something on Monday that reminded me of my high school days. There was a young man working on the scout team offense against the first defense. The man he was supposed to be blocking was bigger than him. He seemed hesitant to try and block the bigger player. One of the assistant coaches got on him pretty good and pulled him out. A few plays later, Johnson went over to the player and put his arm around him and talked to him for a minute or so. I don’t know what he said but he probably kept that player out there.



Speaking of spring

football

Here’s a rundown of spring football in the area.

• Newly promoted Lake coach Jason Williams will put his team on display this week in a Green and White scrimmage. It was Tuesday afternoon.

• Newton is also not playing in a jamboree but is planning an intrasquad scrimmage on Thursday at E.L. Morgan Field. It will be a good chance to see the new coach in action.

• Newton County Academy will be playing in a spring jamboree at Stringer on Thursday. The Generals will be taking on MHSAA members Stringer and Clarkdale at the event. This will be a good test for the Generals. Remember this group of rising seniors was undefeated as freshmen in junior high and have pretty much stayed together.

• Union is having spring practice but no jamboree or game. After getting two players hurt in five plays last year at Weir, coach Brad Breland thought better of playing a game this year.

• Newton County played in a three-team jamboree at Northeast Lauderdale last week. Breland didn’t put a lot of stock in the event since he had eight starters missing for a variety of reason. Breland did take the opportunity to work on throwing the ball around though. Of course, he says every year he wants to throw it more but always goes back to what works best for him and that’s running the football.



Remember when

A few weeks ago, I took the wife and kids down to Southern Miss for a baseball game against Houston. As a Mississippi State graduate, I get grief from my wife about not taking the kids to more Southern events since she graduated from there.

Both my wife and I know the Southern Miss coaches well. She worked with Corky Palmer and Scott Berry at Meridian Community College before they really started to get good and I covered them when they were getting good. So we called and got some tickets to the game.

That Friday before the game, I was talking about my trip at our coffee club at the Depot. That’s when Newton County Bank president Wilmer Whittle told me a good story.

Some of you might not know this but Corky Palmer actually got his coaching start in Newton. Fresh out of college, he was a young buck who got to be an assistant for every sport. This particular year, he got saddled with coaching junior high boys basketball. To paraphrase, Whittle says he remembers one instance when he was watching his son play in a junior high game at Little Rock. Palmer was on the bench, looking rather ragged. At some point in the game, Palmer must have thought he missed his bath that morning as he sniffed under each of his arms. Whittle said he remembers his wife saying something to the effect that they sure were scraping the bottom of the barrell for coaches.

I laughed hard at that, but that isn’t even the best part.

After the game that Friday night, we made our way down to the field to say hello to our friends and congratulate them on their victory.

I related Whittle’s story to Palmer who got a big chuckle. He then asked me who told me that story and I told him Wilmer Whittle, the president of the bank. Palmer’s response “You’re kidding me, he was old back then and he’s still at the bank.”

Needless to say, Palmer’s time in Newton was short-lived and he went on to build a junior college juggernaut at Meridian and is well on the way at Southern. It’s like they say, you can’t judge a book by its cover and you certainly can’t judge a young coach. You never know which one will turn out the be the next Corky Palmer.



Robbie Robertson is editor and publisher of The Newton Record.

        

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