Slow Motion Replay: Dixie Jones may have been among the best defensive coordinators the KHSAA has seen and was dad-burn competent in the head job too @bigassfans, @minguabeefjerky, @KyHighFootball, @TriggFootball, @TriggCoAD

Former Trigg head football coach among the finest coaches to ever serve on a staff and the best powerlifting coach in KY history

🎶But I'm busted here and I got Dixie on my mind/
Oh, and I'm stuck up here and I got Dixie on my mind...🎶
Randall Hank Williams, known professionally as Hank Williams Jr. or "Bocephus"

The path to greatness in the KHSAA takes a commitment most coaches are unwilling to undertake. The ones who do, the ones who permit the game and the pursuit of achievement via the game, are called “lifers” by “football people.” Dixie Jones is a “lifer,” and we mean this in the most warm and respectful way. Jones was a very capable coordinator for many years. Jones had many fine teams at Trigg County, Madisonville North-Hopkins, and at Hopkinsville High School. Jones has won a ton of powerlifting state titles and coached some of the finest players to ever grace a KHSAA field. Besides that, we love him at KPGFootball. That counts for something as we’re the ones writing these articles.

HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”

Cadiz, KY: Dixie Jones is a football coach, but he is much more than that. Dixie Jones is a career educator, but he is much more than that too.

Dixie Jones is a gentleman of the Kentucky sporting world, and a softly spoken man, who eschews the limelight. Coach Jones probably won’t be the least bit happy this article was written about him, if we are being honest, but he is also much more than that.

“Dixie is among the greatest defensive coordinators the KHSAA has ever known,” veteran football coach and nomadic wanderer, Jon Collins, tells KPGFootball. Collins would know, having served as Jones’ assistant at Trigg County in the 90’s and serving on staffs at Murray High, a day at Lincoln County, Fort Thomas Highlands, Breathitt High, Montgomery County, Anderson County, then back to Breathitt before joining Nate Mcpeek’s staff at Frederick Douglass in Lexington.

Collins additionally related, “Dixie is an institution, man! God broke the mold when He made Dixie. There will never be another like him.”

Coach Collins’s effusive praise for his friend aside, Dixie Jones is still much more than that. Dixie Jones is a KHSAA institution unto himself. He is a football icon. Dixie is a high school football legend.

I will tell you this; as the senior writer for this magazine and someone who makes his living covering high school football in Kentucky, if you don’t know the name “Dixie Jones,” I have to seriously question your football knowledge and experience. Dixie has been around forever. Jones is widely loved, widely respected, and universally celebrated in Kentucky’s high school football industry.

Jones would never say this about himself. That is why we are saying it for him.

Jones won 140-games in 27-years as a head coach at Trigg County, Hopkinsville High, and Madisonville North Hopkins. Jones worked as an assistant coach for that many schools and more. Jones assisted Hall of Famer, Dan Goble, on Goble’s staff at Christian County at the end of Goble’s career.

Jones is even better known as a powerlifting coach. Kentucky High School powerlifting is a sport which works in tandem with football and is the preferred offseason activity for budding and hopeful football stars. The sport, not recognized by the KHSAA “officially,” has a 45-50 year history.

Let me put it this way, it is widely believed Dixie Jones has taken a team to the Kentucky Powerlifting State title in nine (9) separate years since the sport has existed. Trigg County has 12-team titles in powerlifting.

Jones wasn’t at Trigg County in 2007, ’08, or ’09. Jones has been there for the remainder.

Trigg County is the Alabama Crimson Tide of Kentucky High School powerlifting. Its head coach, Dixie Jones, is the sports’ Nick Saban.

Jon Collins had this final remark about his long time friend. “Dixie isn’t much on coaching cliches, or rah rah type stuff. Dixie is more the Gary Cooper-type in High Noon. That has always been more his style.” 

Jones suffered a stroke not long ago and convalesced, in the hospital, for several weeks. We believe he is recovering. We pray he gets back to full strength.

We believe Jones has returned home, at least as of the date of the publishing of this article. We hope Jones is feeling much better. We hope Jones is continuing to progress.

You have to forgive us if we aren’t surprised by the news Jones has been able to whoop an illness or two, a condition or two, or even three. You see, that is just Dixie Jones.

That is the coach and man we admire, the one we have always known, the one we have grown to enormously respect. Jones just isn’t the type to let anyone or anything get him down in the mouth. Jones is the “Comeback Kid.”

Knock him down all you want; Dixie Jones is going to get off the floor and come back at you with everything he has, everything he can muster. Yep, that sounds about right to those of us who know Dixie Jones. That’s our Dixie!

Dang, that guy’s a tough old bird. Just like Gary Cooper in “High Noon.”

🎶Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper)🎶
-Puttin’ on the Ritz, Irving Berlin, 1982.

This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!

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