Jacksonville moves
- Updated: April 3, 2025
Freeney leaving Saks to join Sullivan’s staff, and former Piedmont great Taylor Hayes coming back to Calhoun County as Jacksonville’s head baseball coach and assistant in football.
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
JACKSONVILLE — Jeremy Sullivan successfully recruited Alphonso Freeney once, and the new Jacksonville High head football coach proved persuasive again.
The Jacksonville City Schools board of education approved Freeney’s hiring to join Sullivan’s new Jacksonville staff as assistant head coach at Thursday’s meeting. Freeney, Saks’ head coach the past two seasons, informed the Wildcats of his pending move just ahead of the board meeting.
The board also approved former Piedmont standout Taylor Hayes’ hiring as head baseball coach and assistant football coach.
The moves come in the same week in which the school announced that Sullivan will retain two current assistants. Brian Owens will serve as defensive coordinator and strength coach, and Lamus McCombs will serve as special teams coordinator and as a defensive assistant.
Jacksonville is replacing head coach Clint Smith and four members of his staff after they accepted the same positions at White Plains. The White Plains-bound staff included football offensive coordinator and head baseball coach Jamison Edwards, who will serve both capacities at White Plains starting in the 2025-26 school year.
Freeney’s move will move his workplace much closer to his Jacksonville home. His 10-year-old daughter, Harper, and 8-year-old son, Drennen, attend Jacksonville’s Kitty Stone Elementary, which is across the street from Jacksonville High School.
“Just the fact that I’m going to be able to see them every day and pick them up from school every day, throughout my years in coaching, my family has kind of made that sacrifice for me,” Freeney said. “Some Thursday nights and Monday nights, I don’t see my kids. Like, they’re in bed.
“For that simple fact that I have an opportunity now to put them first … it’s just time. It’s a good opportunity for me to pour more into them, and it’s just something I couldn’t pass up.”
Freeney interviewed for Jacksonville’s head coaching job before Sullivan swayed him to become a right-hand man.
Freeney will also reunite with Sullivan, who recruited him while an assistant coach at Jacksonville State University. Freeney played fullback for the Gamecocks under former head coach Jack Crowe.
“I told him, ‘You did this when I was 18, got me to come up here and sign on the dotted line, and now you’ve done it again,’” Freeney said. “I was just talking to my dad, remembering when I was a senior in high school. This same guys was sitting in our living room talking to my parents and, on my visit up here, talking to my parents.
“My dad and him have a great relationship. My mom and him have a great relationship. Even since I’ve been out of school, me and him have had a great relationship.”
Freeney went 3-17 in two seasons with a rebuilding Saks team. Before that, he got his head coaching breakthrough at Pasco (Fla.) High School in December of 2021, taking over after the Pirates suffered their first winless season since 1942. They went 9-2 under his direction in 2022.
Pasco went from 18 players to 70 under Freeney. He was voted coach of the year for Pasco County and the Tampa Bay area.
“I’m one of those guys, I can always learn,” Freeney said. “I can always be better, and who better to learn from than Jeremy Sullivan?
“Being able to do that in a community like Jacksonville, with the resources and a great community that will come out and support on Friday night, I’m just excited about that stuff.”
Hayes returns to his native Calhoun County from Hoover, where he served as an assistant coach in football and serves as an assistant in baseball in the 2024-25 school year. He coached inside linebackers in football.
Before Hoover, he served as an assistant coach at Leeds from 2021-24, coaching defensive backs as passing-game coordinator for the defense. He’ll coach defensive backs at Jacksonville.
He also served as a volunteer assistant at Piedmont while finishing his course work at Jacksonville State, working with running backs in football and pitchers in baseball.
He was a highly decorated athlete at Piedmont, where he was a four-time first-team all-state player and two-time Super 7 most valuable player in football, quarterbacking the Bulldogs to state titles in 2015 and 2016. He was a two-time all-state linebacker before taking over at quarterback.
He was Alabama Sports Writers Association Class 3A back of the year in 2015 and 2016.
In baseball, he was a first-team all-state selection in 2014 and 2017, super all-state in 2017 and Class 3A player of the year in 2017.
Hayes signed to play football at Jax State and was part of the 2017 Ohio Valley Conference championship team. He played baseball for Wallace State-Hanceville before returning to Jax State to finish college.
He’ll take over a baseball program that produced Major League players Shed Long and Todd Cunningham.
“With it being Jacksonville, a city school system, I know I’ll have a lot of support, not only from the school system but from the community,” Hayes said. “I know that they’ve had success in the past, especially when I was playing with Coach (David) Deerman and Coach (David) Clark. I remember some of those guys like Shed Long that I was playing against that went on and did really big things and making it as far as the major leagues. I know there’s potential there. That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to get this job.
“On the other hand, there’s Coach Sullivan and all of the good things that I’ve heard about him. When he reached out, it was kind of a no-brainer for me and my wife (Grayce) just to be able to get back closer to family and be a part of a great school system and a great athletic program that’s kind of stepped into uncharted waters in Class 5A.”
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