Why Jacksonville State football Charles Kelly thought it was time to become a head coach

New Jacksonville State football coach Charles Kelly has been around the profession for a long time.

He started after graduating from Auburn, coaching at Central-Phenix City and jumped to the college ranks at his alma mater as a graduate assistant. He would move to a full time role at Jacksonville State and from there his career took off.

After more than 30 years as an assistant coach, he finally is making the jump to become a head coach for the first time at Jacksonville State. He talked about why this time he felt it was the right time to make that jump.

“There’s been other times, people have asked me why haven’t you made the move to be a head coach. I’ve had opportunities throughout the years. I didn’t feel like it was the right time,” Kelly said. “Like I mentioned, Jacksonville State is a special place. The alumni, the fans, the support all the resources that this university has. You have every opportunity to be successful, and you have the resources to do that.”

Jacksonville has been special to not just Kelly, but his family. Its where he got his first full-time coaching role and then coached as coordinator. Personally, his oldest daughter was born in Jacksonville.

For Kelly, leaving Auburn was tough, knowing that there was a lot of great young talent there, most of who he recruited there and had some great young talent lined up to keep excelling. He knew it was time to go out and take over a program.

“It was tough, there are a lot great coaches down there, there’s a lot of really good young players. I think the toughest thing for me had nothing to do with Jacksonville State. The toughest thing was leaving those players, we had some good young players,” Kelly said.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Why Jacksonville State football Charles Kelly came to the Gamecocks

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/why-jacksonville-state-football-charles-230047114.html

Author : The Gadsden Times

Publish date : 2024-12-22 23:00:00

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