Dwight Jones, St. Anne-Pacelli head coach
Today’s interviewee is St. Anne-Pacelli coach Dwight Jones, whose team defeated Stratford Academy 10-0 in the GIAA Class 4A championship game last week in Macon. The state title was the first for St. Anne-Pacelli, which started football in 1960, and the first for Jones, who began coaching in 1979. St. Anne-Pacelli left the GHSA for the GIAA this academic year. Jones came to St. Anne-Pacelli in in 2019. He previously had been a head coach at Harris County, Jones County, McIntosh, Northside of Columbus and Hardaway in Georgia and Russell County and Auburn in Alabama.
1. What has this championship meant for your school and community, and what's it mean for you, as a first-time champion? “I just think it’s another breath of fresh air. We’ve had a great fall and winter months. The kids are excited. The coaches are excited. The faculty is excited. I had a great group of players and a great coaching staff. You have to be blessed and injury-free and have the luck of the draw, as we say. I’ve played in semifinals and lost to the team that won it. I’ve lost in the second round to the team that won it. It takes a special group, and this one was truly special.”
2. Talk about the championship game and the semifinal, an overtime victory over your archrival, Brookstone. What was most memorable about them? “Brookstone, that’s our biggest rivalry. They’re probably 10 miles from our school. It was down to a third-and-26 play in overtime. Cam Ellis, our quarterback, makes a great scramble run and gets it down to the 1. We take it in on the next play. That was a fantastic win. [The final score was 20-17.] To be able to come off that and get the momentum back and play a good football game against Stratford and win the state championship was a great effort by our kids.”
3. What would you want people to know about your team? “I met with the seniors before summer practice started, on July 4, and I asked each of them to write down seven goals for the season. I said to make sure they were realistic. Everyone listed winning a state championship. We had one, Jaquez Johnson, write it seven times – state championship, state championship, state championship all the way down. We had a great group of seniors. These kids genuinely loved and cared about each other. The biggest thing they wanted was for Pacelli High School to win. They didn’t care who got the credit as long as Pacelli got the credit. That says a lot nowadays when so there’s so much me, me, me. They pulled for each other. Little things became big things from keeping the weight room clean and the toilets flushed. They did it the right way.”
4. What were your initial feelings about your school joining the GIAA, and what are they now? “I think it’s still high school football. It’s good football. We play some of the same teams in Macon that have really good football programs. We played Brookstone again, and they’re a good program. We didn’t play Trinity Christian and ELCA, but a lot of people don’t want to play them. They went from 1A to 2A and 4A. Friday night, I thought it was a good high school football game played between two good high school teams, and we got after it for 48 minutes. And you couldn’t have found a better venue than what we had when we played Brookstone. You can take me to Lowndes or wherever. I’ve played in 6A semifinals in Alabama. There was no place to sit that night. It was standing room only. Both student bodies were involved. It was a fantastic atmosphere. I know what it’s like to play in great atmospheres, and that’s what it was, man.”