New Westminster football coach impresses players early

Westminster's new football coach hasn't tooted a whistle or drawn up a play for the Wildcats, yet he has already captured the attention of his future players.

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Chris Jones is the new coach at Westminster, which will field its first varsity-level football team this year. He will be introduced to the community at 7 tonight in the school's gym.

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Chris Jones visited the campus twice this winter and made an impression among those who will join him for the school's first varsity season this fall.

"We all said the same thing: That guy was amazing," said Nick Newsome, who played running back on the junior varsity team last season. "Every one of us agreed (that) we liked coach Jones. It was pretty much unanimous."

Jones, a 1995 graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and current assistant coach at a large Birmingham-area public school, will be introduced to the Westminster community at 7 tonight at an event in the school's gym.

The Wildcats, who fielded a junior varsity team for the first time last season, will compete this fall in a Georgia Independent Schools Association Class AA region against area teams including Edmund Burke Academy and Curtis Baptist.

Westminster will be eligible for the playoffs and will play in Class AA for two seasons before moving up to Class AAA, headmaster Steve O'Neil said. The school's other teams will still compete in Class AAA.

"(Jones) was a real standout in terms of how he resonated with our boys," O'Neil said.

Westminster has already scheduled 10 varsity games. Seven of those teams made the playoffs, including two-time defending state champion Memorial Day, a Savannah school. Jones will coach the Wildcats for the first time Aug. 27 in the season opener against Curtis Baptist.

Jones said he is familiar with the steps necessary to start a program. He oversaw the debut of a football program at Riverside Christian Academy in Fayetteville, Tenn., about 30 miles north of Huntsville, Ala. He was selected from more than 100 applicants for the Westminster job and was the only candidate to come to the school twice to interview.

"I'm very familiar with the things they described to me that they wanted to do," Jones said. "Everything they do is not only excellent, it's saturated in Christ. ... That's a big deal to me and my family. To be able to build a program based on that would be a really awesome experience."

Jones, who played linebacker at UAB, worked as a graduate assistant at the college under Watson Brown, Mack Brown's older brother who oversaw the school's transition from Division I-AA to the I-A level.

"I saw that the high school coaching route, you could have the biggest impact ... high school athletes really look up to their coaches," Jones said. "They look to that coach for leadership and guidance."

Westminster had about 57 students participate in its junior varsity and middle school teams last year, said Mike Hearon, a team parent and former college football player who coached the team last season. Hearon said he expects that number to spike this fall. One reason is the school is moving its varsity soccer season from fall to the spring. The only other varsity sport Westminster will offer in the fall is cross country.

"We dressed about 31 or 32 last year (for JV games)," said Hearon, who will remain with the program to do "whatever needed."

"We're projected about the 45 range this year. ... We're taking 70-75 boys overall," he said.

Jones said he plans to install a Texas Tech-style passing offense that will also run the ball out of a scheme similar to the University of Florida, an offense that could offer plenty of scoring for the school's first varsity season.

"We have been asking ourselves: Is this the inaugural season of football or did we just have the inaugural season?" O'Neil said. "This coming season is our inaugural year for fielding a varsity team, that's what we're saying. ... With Chris Jones, I just see him building upon this past season and taking us to a very high level not only in the X's and O's of football (but) also in the tradition of developing boys into men."