Talking Football with Coach Bear Bradley, head football coach for the Southern Guilford Storm

Talking Football on this Monday afternoon with Coach Jason “Bear” Bradley, the head football coach for the Southern Guilford Storm, and the Storm open up their season on Friday night August 23, at Ragsdale High School, in Jamestown, N.C.

**********Our Seven-on-Seven Series of questions for Coach Bradley:**********

1)For your program to reach the playoffs, what will your record need to be this season?
Coach Bradley:We really need a six-win season and seven wins would really be a step in the right direction…Seven wins should get you in….

2)Who will be your team leaders on Offense, Defense, and Special Teams?
Coach Bradley: On offense our running back Desmond Johnson and our quarterback, junior Myles Crisp, will be our leaders…Amari Lee and Jalen Smith will be our top receivers…On our line we are still young, but we have some experience there, with Jalen and Jamier Ferere….Jamier Ferere 6’0/285 and Jalen Ferere, 6’4/331 and we include Corey Wright up there at 5’11/264 on the O-line……On defense we will look to Isaiah Wells and Elijah Broach at defensive end, plus Desmond Thompson at DB, and Cameron Tatum at DB/LB…For Special Teams, we are looking for Jaison Parada to have a solid year, punting and kicking the football…..

3)What do remember about about your football practice days, back when you were playing high school football?
Coach Bradley: I remember the physicality…It was tough and it was physical….We had at least two scrimmages before our first regular season game and it was more like this with the games starting a week later than usual…With the season starting later, it gives you more time to get ready….It makes for a better overall schedule, with somes now having those first-games, a week later on…This allows you to give more time your backups and reserves and let’s them be more prepared physically and mentally, for the new season, and for some kids, it is their first exposure to high school football and it helps to get in the extra work, as these new kids need all of the help, that then can get……

4)Why do you love coaching football?
Coach Bradley: It is all about, “The Love of the Game”….Football has always been a passion of mine….It just teaches us so many life lessons and it also teaches the purest form of discipline, known to man or women….”I like to be able to give back to football, what it gave to me”….It gave me a chance to develop discipline in myself and a chance to learn how to finish something, no matter what the difficulties, or the circumstances……Football also teaches you the right way to do things, in your daily life…….

5)If you weren’t coaching football, what would you be doing?
Coach Bradley: I would probably go to Law School….And then become a lawyer. I majored in political science while in college and I still have some of that in my blood…..Doing some kind of legal work, would work for me…….

6)Best team in the county other than your Southern Guilford Storm?
Coach Bradley: Page, Southeast Guilford, Eastern Guilford, Dudley and Ragsdale, all appear to be the best right now to me…..

7)What’s the first thing you do in practice each day?
Coach Bradley: We usually begin with the stretching, but even before we do that, we like to begin with the Lord’s Prayer…..We get going and end each practice with a word of prayer and one of our player’s suggested this would be a good way to begin and end our practice, with the Lord’s Prayer…It gets us going/started in a strong peaceful manner and our players get the chance to get some of the bad parts of the school day out of their mind and replace it, with new clear thoughts and thoughts about being a part of team and dedicating themselves to that Total Team Effort……….

We thank coach Jason “Bear” Bradley for his time today and we also got to talk about Coach Bradley’s days as a Cherokee Brave, up in the mountains of North Carolina and at Cherokee High School….Coach Bradley’s old team made it all the way to the NCHSAA Championship game last season…..We talked and looked back at one of his old coaches and mentors, Babe Howell, who led the old Sylva Webster High School to several State championships in football and baseball…..Coach Howell had the Streater Brothers in Eric, Steve, and Jimmy and those brothers were among the top athletes, to ever come out of the mountains of North Carolina….Former Duke football coach Fred Goldsmith coached up at Franklin High School and they were a chief rival to Smokey Mountain, the school that replaced Sylva Webster….Coach Bradley knew them all and he has tons of memories going back to his time as six year-old kid, attending high school football games, at Sylva Webster and all around the mountains of North Carolina….These days there are lot of the Brooks Family still coaching high school football up there in those North Carolina mountains….

Coach Bradley also said he would have been proud to be coaching Southern Guilford High School, back when they were known as the Indians, and that the tradition of Sumner and Southern Guilford Football, is very strong in the communities down around Drake Road……

Good football talk today, with Coach Jason “Bear” Bradley, from Southern Guilford High School…..

Click Below for our video interview with Coach Bear Bradley, from Southern Guilford High School…Lots of good info about the upcoming season….