By Morgan Bryce

Editor

Cody Flournoy was confirmed as the head coach of Jackson High School during yesterday’s Clarke County School Board meeting.

Flournoy, with previous assistant coaching experience at Central-Phenix City and his alma mater Smiths Station, shocked the Alabama high school football world last fall by helping break Beulah’s 10-year playoff absence, winning eight games, its most in a season since 1995 and posting the first winning record for a Bobcat coach since Rusty Nichols, who compiled a 28-10 mark at the school from 1983 to 1985.

Jackson’s formal offer earlier this month “was completely out of the blue” for Flournoy, who was preparing for upcoming spring training.

“Looking at it from the outside, everybody would be inclined to say, ‘yeah, it’s a great program and a great football deal.’ But reaching an answer on this was not easy,” Flournoy said. “Beulah’s a place where you could make a career of it. But, through a lot of prayer, talks with some Godly people and the Lord on what I should do, all we kept hearing was ‘go, go, go,’ which ultimately led me to accepting their offer.”

Classified as a 5A school, Jackson has a solid program history with 70 winning seasons, 63 percent overall win total and two state championships. Flournoy will replace Danny Powell, who stepped down in mid-March after eight seasons with the Aggie program, posting a 74-18 during that tenure.

While the search is on to find Flournoy’s replacement, he said he believes he has helped lay a solid foundation for the Bobcat’s future.

“When you win at Beulah, you know you’ve really done something. At Jackson, there’s an expectation to win every year … but winning and doing what we did here, it was just something special,” Flournoy said. “It wasn’t just me that helped get that done. It took the coaching staff, players and community buying into what we were doing. I think and hope everybody understands my decision … Beulah is a special community filled with some great people.”

Attempts to reach Beulah Athletic Director Richard Brown Jr. have been unsuccessful. Follow the Observer for updates on the school’s coaching search.