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Centennial football coach Jamaal Stewart resigned and accepted the offensive coordinator position under new Pope John Paul II Preparatory School coach Roc Batten, the Tennessean confirmed.
Stewart went 17-8 in two seasons at Centennial with two TSSAA football playoff appearances after being hired away from East Nashville in 2023.
Stewart said the decision boiled down to his personal life. He was already considering opportunities in Rutherford County to ease logistics with his daughter, who was in the Smyrna school system, roughly a 42-minute drive from Centennial. Being an assistant will also provide time for him to help plan he and his new fiancé’s wedding, he said.
“It was hard for me to tell those kids that I’m not their head coach anymore. You see the change in the kids’ confidence, the morale. You see that change in two years,” Stewart said. “When you have to tell those kids, you can see how heartbroken they were. I was heartbroken. But this is the best thing for my family.”
Batten was the one who initiated conversations between the two.
“You never know in those situations when someone’s a sitting head coach,” Batten said. “I talked about our vision as a program, our vision as a school and where we’re going with our new leadership at the school. We feel really fortunate we were able to get him over to JPII. I love what he’s done offensively and creatively through his coaching.”
Stewart was a huge success at East Nashville, engineering Class 3A back-to-back state runner-up finishes in 2021 and 2022, losing to Alcoa both seasons. Stewart went 27-11 in three Tennessee high school football seasons at the Metro Nashville Public School.
Stewart’s hire was a big addition to Batten’s new staff just weeks after Batten was announced as JPII’s replacement for former coach Brian Sneed. Batten spent the past season at…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/centennial-football-coach-jamaal-stewart-155749051.html
Author : The Tennessean
Publish date : 2025-01-24 15:57:00
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