Talking Football with High Point Central High School head football coach, Wayne Jones

We were able to connect with the High Point Central Bison head football coach Wayne Jones today, and caught up with Coach Jones right before HP Central was leaving the school, for a scrimmage over at North Forsyth….Coach Jones is a football and a track man and we talked about both today and Coach Jones said he has some promising players that will line up and take the field for him, this Fall….

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

1)For your program to reach the playoffs, what will your record need to be this season?
Coach Jones:We need to win at least 6 of our 11 games….

2)Who will be your team leaders on Offense, Defense, and Special Teams?
Coach Jones: On the defensive line we will count on Mason Bowers….He is a big lineman and he has several colleges looking at him and he can make things happen…..Our overall playmaker on Offense will be Keith McDuffie Jr….He will line up at WR and he will play some quarterback for us and on defense, we will use him as a linebacker….We will also rely heavily on Elijah Kennedy at slot receiver, on Offense….Our Special Teams are a work-in-progress right now…..

3)What do remember about about your football practice days, back when you were playing high school football?
Coach Jones: We would look forward to going to practice and it was always fun when we got there, because we would be around all of our friends….Everyone was playing football together, and it was a real team effort, with all of us pulling together back in those days…..

4)Why do you love coaching football?
Coach Jones: It gives you the ability to be able to help kids….It means kids can go places and football takes them places, they otherwise would never go…..Kids can go to college and by us coaching them in football, we can help them realize their dreams….They learn how to get there, how to get into college and they learn, “if they can’t get in the front door, they can get in the back door”….As coaches we help them get there, and hopefully in the end, they can achieve great things….

5)If you weren’t coaching football, what would you be doing?
Coach Jones: I would be a barber…..I like cutting hair and have been cutting hair for kids since back-in-the-day….When you win on Friday night, you get to go to the barbershop on Saturday….The atmosphere and feeling around the barbershop is really nice and it is a great place to hang out and hear about everything that is going on in the neighborhood……

6)Best team in the county other than your High Point Central Bison?
Coach Jones: Southeast Guilford and Dudley

7)What’s the first thing you do in practice each day?
Coach Jones: We start practice with group warmups….Then we go to work on Fade Routes for the receivers, OL vs. DL drills and running back bag drills….We then get our Long Snappers snapping and go into more detailed Special Teams work…”You Win or Lose by Special Teams”…..

++++++++++No matter how old he is, Coach Wayne Jones said he will always be a Track man….Football was his favorite sport back in high school, and always was his favorite sport, but Track got him his college scholarship…Coach Jones also put in a good word for Don Osborne, who has helped many an aspiring high school football kicker or punter, and even some long snappers over the years…Coach Jones remembered back to when “Little Boomer”, Will Johnson, was his kicker at HP Central and how the “Little Boomer” learned through Soccer and then honed his kicking craft, by working out on Sunday afternoons, with Don Osborne, over in Thomasville, at Thomasville High School….Coach Jones also mentioned how the Brenners, Snow Brenner and maybe it was her brother Will, they also came through that “Don Osborne Sunday Afternoon School of Kicking”….Others would be Matt Millisor, Austin Anthony, Harrison Kiser from Page HS and Colin Smith, from Eastern Guilford High School and a couple of kids from Northwest Guilford too(One of the NWG kids was Cody)….Coach Wayne Jones does not mind giving credit where credit is due, and he had nothing but good things to say today, about the old kicking guru, Don Osborne…Whenever we start talking about High Point, Don Osborne’s name tends to come up in the discussion……++++++++++