By Jim Stout
MaxPreps.com
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – J.D. Hall would have been proud.
The Touchdown Club at Jacksonville Stadium was brimming with the life and hope and promise of North Florida high school football last Thursday, just the way Hall had envisioned it. The second-annual High School Kickoff Media Day for the 56 teams in the region was stating what the immensely popular Hall had said all along, that Jacksonville-area football deserved to be placed on a stage as big and as grand as any region in the Southeast.
The fact that the cavernous banquet facility at the home of the Jacksonville Jaguars was overflowing with players, coaches and media was the only testament anyone needed.
How heart-wrenching that the only one missing was Hall himself.
The visionary Hall, once a star quarterback at Robert E. Lee High here and later a standout at Bethune-Cookman University, was just 35 years old when he died of an apparent heart attack in June of 2007. He was serving as head coach at the time at Mandarin High, another prominent Jacksonville program, and had just returned from Daytona Beach after speaking at a Florida high school coaches' clinic.
He died where he had lived for much of his three previous seasons at Mandarin – in his office.
But his spirit and his vision have lived on, perhaps with more vitality than even Hall could have imagined.
"Coach Hall had played and coached in college before coming to Mandarin and had a chance to see high school football in some different areas, areas where it was extremely big and well covered, and he was concerned that it wasn't getting the attention it deserved here," said Josh Baker, president of Baker Sports and chief organizer of the Jacksonville media day.
"He was passionate about high school football. He lived and breathed high school football. He wanted to see it get more exposure here."
Thus Hall began trying to put together a media day kickoff event for the Jacksonville area, something that is rare in high school football circles but is common among the major college conferences such as the ACC and SEC.
With media coverage of prep football having slipped markedly in the area following the arrival of the NFL Jaguars, Hall felt if he could bring together the coaches and players from 50-plus schools in the area under one roof, the media would come.
Baker, whose company services the equipment needs of schools in North Florida and South Georgia, agreed. After Hall died 14 months ago, Baker did something about it.
"It was amazing to me that you could drive 20 miles north of here and there'd be 8,000 people at a game on a Friday night in Georgia, and then you'd drive back here and go to a local game and there'd be only 800 or 1,000 people," he said.
"And it's not like the football was any better in Georgia or in any other part of Florida. It's very good here in the Greater First Coast Area.
"In talking to the coaches, they complained that they never get any attention from the media," Baker added. "I talked to the media and they basically told me 'you're right, that we have the Jaguars to cover, that we have the University of Florida, Florida State and Georgia to cover. We don't have time to cover 60 high schools.' "
They do now. The local media didn't have to go to 56 schools on Thursday to work on their pre-season reports. The 56 schools came to the media for this second-annual event. Newspaper writers scribbled away. Television stations taped interviews. The radio station 1010XL, the voice of Jacksonville-area high school football, broadcasted live on site all morning and afternoon. Glossy prep football magazines such as Ultimate High School Sports worked the crowded and effervescent room.
"For the first year (in 2007) I had to beg about half the coaches to come to this," Baker recalled.
"I had to beg all of the media to come. Now it's a situation where everyone wants to be here. Channel 4 came last year and did their (interview) set-up, but we invited eight newspapers and I think one came. Now they are all here. Because of this event, an entire magazine (Ultimate High School Sports) has kind of spun off of it. Now we also do a radio show every Friday night in the area from 7 until midnight, previewing all the games from 7 to 7:30, then broadcasting the game of the week, then a post-game show and review afterward on 1010 XL."
This was exactly what Hall had in mind when he first articulated the need to put Jacksonville-area football on the map. Bolles High assistant coach Wayne Belger, who coached Hall as a prep player at Robert E. Lee two decades earlier, wasn't surprised when he first learned of Hall's connection.
"J.D. was a player who worked extremely hard in high school and loved what he did and made himself into a player through hard work and passion," Belger said. "He wasn't the most talented athlete we had, but no one worked harder or loved the game more than he did. I think he felt the same way about football in the area, the kids playing it and the coaches who coached here.
"He wound up getting a scholarship to Bethune Cookman," Belger added. "I think he still holds some of their throwing records. I think the kids respected him overall as a coach here in the area because he worked so hard on their behalf to make them better and make the team better. His death was a shock to everyone. He took great care of himself and probably didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. It was such a shock."
In three years at Mandarin, Hall coached the Mustangs to an overall mark of 20-11. He twice led them to the playoffs. Twenty-five of his players went on to play at scholarship programs.
Luther Price replaced Hall on an interim basis during the 2007 season before giving way to Mandarin's new head coach, Jason Robinson, a young, energetic and highly organized former assistant at Orlando Olympia.
Robinson was one of the many coaches at Media Day 2008 who took advantage of one of the event's first-time features, the ability to sign up on the spot to use a popular national web site for posting his team's statistics. Every little bit helps when trying to establish the reputation of a region.
"I have big shoes to fill at Mandarin," Robinson said.
But Robinson's job, as well as the job of the 55 other head coaches in the region, has undoubtedly become a little easier from a media standpoint. J.D. Hall had a vision and Josh Baker made it a reality.
"When many people think of football in Florida, they think of Miami, they think of Tampa, they even think of Tallahassee a lot of times before Jacksonville," Baker said.
"Tallahassee Lincoln was such a powerhouse for so long. In Jacksonville, the smaller classifications have been dominant in some cases but not in the larger classifications. Jacksonville doesn't have a lot of larger schools. We needed a way to improve the overall image of the Greater First Coast Area."
They found it.
"Originally we suggested that the coaches come and bring their two best players or their two captains," said Baker.
"But if you walk around the room, you'll find that coaches didn't necessarily bring their stud running back. He may have brought a player who worked harder than anyone in the weight room and did everything he was asked to do and has a 4.0 grade point average, or improved tremendously since last season through all his hard work and dedication to the game."
Probably someone a lot like J.D. Hall.
Jim Stout is the MaxPreps.com Media Manager for the Eastern U.S., as well as a writer and photographer. He may be reached at 845-367-2864 or at jstout@maxpreps.com
