After Two Seasons as an Assistant, Jackson Gets the Call to Lead the Defending Kingco Champions.
By Martin Barrett.
What is it like to lose the state championship game? JT Jackson knows that feeling. As a senior at O’Dea, he helped the team make it to the year’s final contest, only to lose to Bellevue High School. “It is heartbreaking,” said Coach Jackson. And yet, for Jackson, the opportunity to play for a storied program changed his life. “I experienced a quality of coaching from men who became mentors and life friends,” said Jackson.
Jackson loves to teach! “Football is a microcosm of life, teaching kids how to deal with and get back up from adversity,” said Jackson. “I enjoy the competitive nature of the game. I enjoy the learning I receive from teaching. I enjoy seeing kids grow and develop. Every kid needs to be coached differently. Once you understand what the player needs, then build the friendship. They need to know when they’ve failed and when they’ve succeeded; that needs to be communicated differently to individual kids”, according to Jackson.
Coming to a program in the early stages of “building excellence” was attractive to Jackson. “I could have gone to an established winner like O’Dea, but I wanted to be part of establishing a new place of excellence,” said Jackson.
In the two years since coming to Highline, Jackson has established a family. His wife and 2-year-old daughter are important parts of the Pirate football family. Jennifer is often there with JT at Highline basketball games. Their daughter is a little sister to the players, who hug, laugh, and play with her. The Jackson family will add a new and delightful element to the program.
Jackson emphasized that the program will not change. The culture will be the same. Hard work. Team play. Seeking excellence.
We asked if the legendary post-practice game chant would stay, and Jackson lit up. “Oh yes, let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Then go home and tell someone you love them because you never know if you will get to say it again.” As a hard-driving coach and loving and tender husband and father, JT speaks from the truth he lives.
Coach Jackson truly loves these kids. His attention to knowing them for who they are will be life-changing for some of them. Not only is he passing on the mentoring and life friendship he was given as a player and building a new program of excellence, but perhaps he will help those kids get what he really wanted: a State Championship. “That would be my great joy,” said Jackson.
