By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

Jess Simpson was prepared.

That’s expected of a coach who has a phenomenal record as a high school head coach

As he stepped to the podium Monday night at the Macon Touchdown Club, he plopped down a laptop in front of him.

Then he audibled, and very well, spending the next 31 broad and entertaining minutes talking about his extensive and successful career, the many mentors who constantly changed his life, his new job at Georgia Tech, difficult yet easy career and family decisions, and a little actual football along the way.

“This is kind of fun talking to you guys,” he said. “I feel like I’m in a room with people that just absolutely love football. It’s cool that you guys get together.

“I’d love to be a member of this club and eat more catfish.”

Ten minutes later, he acknowledged how his plan had changed for the visit.

“I’m just telling you guys football stories,” he said. “I had another talk prepared, but I was like, ‘They’d probably like to hear football stories.”

Simpson has had quite the career, one that few would have expected a decade ago to take him where he’s gone.

The Marietta grad played at Auburn, and was talked into helping out by former head coach Pat Dye.

“I said, “Coach, I ain’t even going to coach,’” Simpson said. “I talked to my dad. I just couldn’t say ‘no’ to Coach Dye.

“Within probably two to three weeks, I knew 100 percent that I was going to be a football coach and absolutely fell in love with it.”

That was in 1992.

One of his duties was to wear Dye’s headset during games, because Dye didn’t want to wear it.

“He’s hollering and cussing at me wanting to know what the coordinators were saying,” Simpson said. “I was not wanting to ask the coordinators why they called that play, and he’d look at me and say to ask them.”

He went back to Marietta to work with his head coach Dexter Wood, in 1994. Suddenly, Wood made a career and family move, and took the head coach job at Buford, and wanted Simpson to come with him.

“I was 24 years old, 25 years old, I thought I should be the head coach at Marietta,” Simpson said. “I said, ‘Coach, I’ll let you know how this interview goes here at Marietta. I think they’re going to make me the head coach.’”

Simpson realized he needed to learn how to bea head coach and spent two years at Buford. He became East Paulding’s head coach in 1997 and learned a lot, going 0-10. He returned to Buford as an assistant from 1998-2004, succeeding Wood in 2005.

Thus began a legendary run of 10 state title games, seven state championships, and a record of 164-12, with two runs of two perfect 15-0 seasons. Buford won a state championship in his worst year, 12-3 in 2012.

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But …

“My last few years, I had a real itch to do something different,” he said. “I didn’t know what that was.”

First, he had to finish coaching his sons at Buford, so he was able to move along after 2016. The Monday after son Jake’s final game, Simpson resigned at Buford, with nothing lined up.

That didn’t last long. Georgia State head coach Shawn Elliott called him, they sat on a bench in a workout room, and within half an hour, he had a new job.

For two months. Atlanta Falcons head coach Dan Quinn called and offered him a job that he said he couldn’t take.

Quinn told him to call Elliott, and he did, and was promptly told: “Before you say a word to me, Jess, you’ve got to take that job.’”

After 2017 with Atlanta and after not getting a job at Alabama, he joined former Georgia head coach Mark Richt at Miami.

“One of the greatest experiences of my life,” he said. “An incredible man, incredible leader. He’s a real man, a real competitor.”

He went back to the Falcons for two years, back to Miami for a year, then to Duke, leaving there when Mike Elko took the Texas A&M head coaching job.

Soon enough, Brent Key called him about coming to Georgia Tech as the defensive line coach. Appreciating Key’s passion for Georgia Tech, it was an easy decision.

He believes there’s another high school coaching job left in him, but one thing will remain the same.

“I don’t care what level you’re at and what you’re doing,” he said. “I know this. I can’t wait to wake up every morning and to get in that room with those 15 or 16 defensive linemen and to speak life into them.”

He recalled another speaker referencing something similar to his experience with Dye.

“You’re either going to be a transactional coach or you’re going to be a transformational coach,” Simpson said. “The transactional coach is a guy that’s just pushing your buttons, trying to figure out how to get out of you what he needs out of you.

“The transformational coach is a guy who’s trying to win your heart. He’s the guy who’s trying to speak life into you, be a truth-teller. He’s the guy that’s trying to show you that there’s more in you than you ever thought you do, believe, or achieve.”