The Selma Times-Journal

Rick Jackson doesn’t play the game, that’s why he was eager to pass praise on to his players.

But give credit where credit is due.

The Meadowview Christian football team made the leap from a 3-7 team in 2006 to runner up in AISA Class 2A this season. Jackson was voted

Coach of the Year by The Selma Times-Journal’s staff.

“When you get honors like this, you know you’ve got some good players,” Jackson said. “It’s not always about the X’s and O’s. It’s about them Jimmys and Joes. We have some good kids and committed players, and we hope this next group follows in behind them that they do the same thing.”

The Trojans finished the year 9-4 and had their season abruptly ended when Southern Academy won 48-0 in the state championship game.

But before that, Meadowview had a memorable run. They won a playoff game for the first time in 11 years and began the season 5-0.

Perhaps Jackson’s most impressive performance was keeping the team’s spirit up after it lost three of its last five games in the regular season.

Once again, he deferred to his players.

“The leadership was strong with our seniors all year,” Jackson said. “We told them if they would take care of the off-the-field stuff, the on-the-field things would take care of themselves. It comes down to personnel. We looked at personnel and schemes we ran. We changed our defensive schemes, and I thought our defense was the backbone of our team all year.”

The Trojans began preparing for the season long before anyone was thinking about football, and that won’t change for next year.

We started preparing November 26,” Jackson said. “We’ve already started preparing for next year. We’re losing nine seniors that were big contributors. Leadership is going to be a big factor.”