Jonesing for Success

The following article was posted on www.highschoolot.com (from WRAL -local news station) about the Wildcats and Bennett. I just had to put the whole article on here!

Jonesing for Success

West Johnston coach Bennett Jones calls out a play from the sideline.


By Tim Candon, HighSchoolOT.com editor
Updated at 8:08 p.m.

As the setting sun emerged from behind a solitary gray cloud over the West Johnston practice field, Bennett Jones’ shadow slowly stretched out and until it cast over most of his players on the Wildcats football team, who had taken a knee and huddled around their coach for his end-of-practice sermon.

Though he casts a small shadow now, in time, Jones’ shadow will hover over the entire West Johnston football program.

But time is what Jones and the Wildcats never had. After former coach Kwame Dixon’s sudden resignation in mid July, Jones was hired three days before the start of fall practice.

Remarkably, West Johnston was unfazed by the preseason turmoil and uncertainty. The Wildcats are 7-0, the only undefeated team in the Triangle. With a win over Clayton on Friday, the Greater Neuse River Conference title will still be theirs to lose. A win will also keep alive the Wildcats’ chances to finish the season undefeated and be one of the only unbeaten teams in the East heading into the postseason.

Jones spent the first two weeks of practice trying to remember everyone’s name and learning the offensive and defense schemes that were already in place. It took only one game, the Wildcats’ season-opening 41-14 win over Athens Drive, to make it clear to him that his team was capable of something special.

“That was huge in so many aspects,” Jones said. “For us to break out like we did and have a big win, to me it gave me some validity with the players. From then on out, it’s been we’re all in this together.”

The Wildcats had their best season in school history last fall. After going 1-3 in non conference play, they went 6-1 in the Greater Neuse, finishing second and qualifying for the 4-AA playoffs for the first time. They lost to Millbrook in the first round.

With more than 20 seniors returning, most players were ready for a breakout year in 2008.

But their season was seemingly scuttled before it got started. Citing personal reasons, Dixon resigned on July 16 after three seasons in Benson, just 16 days before the start of practice. Eric Pulling, the Wildcats defensive coordinator, was named the interim head coach while the school advertised the position.

“We were confused. We didn’t know what was going on,” said Mallie Umphrey, a senior wide receiver and defensive back. “We didn’t know what kind of coach we were going to get. We didn’t know what kind of offense we were going to run. That was real hard for us. Coach Dixon had been our coach since we came in.”

While confusion reigned amongst the players, the remaining coaches were left in the lurch, too.

Steve Pleasants, the offensive line coach who with four years at West Johnston is the longest-tenured coach on the staff, was on vacation in the Bahamas when Dixon resigned.

“I get back to my house and there’s three messages,” Pleasants said. “One’s from Kwame saying he’s resigned. One’s from coach Pulling telling me what’s going on and then one from a parent asking what’s going on. It was just a very strange situation, but we all seemed to pick up and just keep going.”

Just a few miles north of Benson, Jones was preparing for the upcoming season at Clayton, where he had been defensive coordinator for six years. When word reached Gary Fowler, the Comets head coach for the last 23 years, that West Johnston was looking for a new head coach quickly, he thought of Jones.

Jones was the head coach at Wilson Beddingfield, his alma mater, during the 2000 and 2001 seasons. He went 10-11 overall. In 2001, the Bruins went 6-4, their first winning season in five years, but Jones was let go at the end of the academic year.

From Beddingfield, he went to Clayton. As time wore on, Jones settled in and was prepared to remain working with the Comets and perhaps succeed Fowler after he retires.

After six years under Fowler, Jones felt he’d learned how to run a program, something he wasn’t prepared for in Wilson when he got the job at age 26.

“I think when I got the job at Beddingfield, I was so young, I just focused on the football aspect and didn’t understand all the other responsibilities that come along with it — dealing with the press, dealing with officials, weight training — and Gary helped prepare me in terms of managing a program,” said Jones, 34.

The more he learned about the situation in Benson, the more he wanted the job.

But the interview process included a wrinkle that initially gave him pause. West principal Brookie Honeycutt promised the West Johnston seniors their input would be a factor in who was hired. Jones had to go before about a dozen seniors and sell himself to them.

Or so he thought.

“Actually they sold themselves to me,” Jones said. “I knew after leaving there, this is where I wanted to be because it impressed me that 13 or 14 or 15 seniors cared enough to come out in the summer time at 1 o’clock in the afternoon and sit in their school and try to talk to the people that wanted to be their coach. It showed me that they cared just as much about the program as I would coming in to lead it. It was a great process that validated for me I wanted to be here.”

What impressed the players so much was that Jones didn’t stand before them and tell them how they would have to adjust to him. He walked in to the room, pulled up a chair, sat down and talked to them about how he wanted to be their coach, how he was going to catch up with that they were doing, how he didn’t have any plans to change what they did on the field.

“He talked a good game,” said senior defensive back Devon Henderson. “I’m glad we got him.”

To Fowler, the Clayton head coach, Jones' communication skills are precisely what's allowed the Wildcats to regroup from the preseason chaos and come together.

“When you talk about one that can really communicate with the players, he’s always been good at that. That’s probably his biggest asset,” Fowler said. “He knows football, but he knows how to motivate.… As long as they know you care about them, they’ll play hard for you. That’s what coaching’s all about."

By doing more of the same, the Wildcats have thrived on both sides of the ball. They’re averaging 437 yards of offense and 36 points per game. Senior quarterback Lincoln Morton, a Harnett Central transfer, has completed 64 percent of his passes for 1,423 yards and 18 touchdowns. Junior running back C.J. Frederick has run for 1,137 yards and 10 touchdowns. Defensively, West is holding teams to about 20 points per game and 250 yards.

While the coaching switch didn’t change what the Wildcats did on the field, it did change what they did off of it. Jones had the locker rooms repainted, he reorganized the weight room, he purchased new practice shorts and practice jerseys. He instituted a dress code (no earrings, no hats in the building, no sagging pants) and a code of ethics.

Part of what Jones learned from Fowler was the importance of the community to the football program, and he expects his players to reciprocate. This week, every player was required to go out in the community and do something nice for someone else, such as carry someone’s groceries to their car or offer to cut someone’s grass. They were also required to do perform a similarly selfless task for someone at school.

Jones has done all that as a way for his players to take pride and ownership of their program.

And it has worked.

“He’s trying to make everyone a better person instead of just football,” Henderson said. “I think it’s good.”

Jones gets the credit for what West has done this season, but he’s quick to remind anyone that Dixon, and his predecessor Charles Bradshaw, deserve praise, too.

“Kwame deserves a lot of credit for building the foundation of the program,” Jones said. “Both of the head coaches that have preceded me here at the school, I think both did very good jobs in the situation they were in. What I tried to do is come in and enhance what was here.”

Just when everything seemed to come together, one incident shook the team. Last week against East Wake, offensive guard Stephen King was thrown off the team for punching Pleasants several times late in the first half. King’s brother, James, lay on the field with a knee injury and Stephen was shouting at one of the officials near the West sideline, Jones said. Pleasants grabbed Stephen King by the shoulder pads to pull him off the field, and as King was turned around, he threw several punches at Pleasants. Jones immediately threw him off the team, and King was escorted out of the stadium by the Johnston County sheriff’s department.

“It was a situation where one player simply lost his cool and made a very poor decision,” Jones said. “The assistant coach did nothing wrong. All the assistant coach did was try to get a player off the field so that he wouldn’t get ejected. And the player responded in a way none of us are proud of. … And it’s a shame because at the heart, he is a good-natured kid that simply lost his cool. One thing I’ve tried to impress on them — and he showed it clearly — it doesn’t take but one small mistake before all this can be gone. It’s unfortunate for him, for our team, but I believe a true program is bigger than any one individual, including myself.”

The Wildcats, as they’ve done before, handled the adversity and went on to a 21-14 win. Things don’t get any easier this week when the Wildcats play, of all teams, Clayton.

Not only is Jones squaring off against his mentor and former team, not only is it a Johnston County rivalry game, not only is it the midpoint of the conference season, not only is it homecoming, but a win would allow West Johnston to set a new school record for wins in a season.

“I respect and admire so much of what coach Fowler has done at Clayton and the kind of program he has established and the people that are over there and way the entire community supports that school,” Jones said. “It’ll definitely be special. At the same time, it’s an opportunity for our school to prove itself again, to set a new school record for wins, to keep the unbeaten season going and more importantly, to set the pace in the Greater Neuse River Conference. On many levels, it’s special. It’ll definitely be emotional at the start for me more so than the kids, but once the ball gets kicked off, it’s just another game.”

Back at practice, Jones has finished his monologue. The sun has dipped below the tree line, darkness is setting in and there are no shadows anywhere on the field as players and coaches trudge off to the locker room.

In a way, that’s how it should be. No one’s shadow looms over anyone or anything. As Jones said, no one, including himself, is bigger than the program. In order for success to continue, the Wildcats won’t have it any other way.

“If we do this right, it well keep on going regardless of who’s here, regardless of what team it is, what year it is,” Jones said. “A program is something that is there year in and year out. The working pieces may change, but the product remains the same. That’s what we’re trying to establish here.”