BY CLIFF SMELLEY
In talk that had been swirling around Jamie Rodgers stepping down as the head football coach at Bradford High School, the assumption seemed to be that Rodgers was returning to Baker County — his alma mater and where he had previously been head coach.
It became official on Jan. 9, with a Baker County High School social-media post, which read: “BCHS welcomes Coach Jamie Rodgers back, and we look forward to the positive impact he will have on our students, school and community.”
In a December 2021 Telegraph-Times-Monitor story, Rodgers said leaving Georgia, where he was coaching at Adel’s Cook High School, to take the job at Bradford had a lot to do with being closer to home and his mother in Macclenny and his wife Ashley’s family in Glen St. Mary.
In speaking to the Florida Times-Union, Rodgers expressed that home and family were a part of going from Bradford to Baker. The Jan. 10 story written by Clayton Freeman quotes Rodgers as saying, “It just seemed like when this presented itself, it felt right.”
Rodgers will replace Brock Canaday, who was relieved of his coaching duties after one year. Canaday, who was to be a part of Rodgers’ Bradford staff before accepting the job coaching the Wildcats, went 4-7 and qualified for the playoffs.
During his first stint at Baker (2016-18), Rodgers’ teams went 29-9 with three district championships. The Wildcats went 13-2 in 2017, finishing as the Class 5A state runner-up after a loss to powerhouse American Heritage. That season earned Rodgers his second Florida Dairy Farmers Coach of the Year award, with the first being earned when he was at Suwannee.
In the six seasons since Rodgers left to take the job at Cook, the Wildcats went 53-31. They qualified for the playoffs in every year but one, compiling a postseason record of 10-6.
The Wildcats are currently in Class 3A (Bradford is 2A) and will be in a district with Godby, Suwannee and Wakulla.
Rodgers has a career record of 121-52 at four schools, with a postseason record of 23-13.
