BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
Bradford High School enters girls basketball with a new head coach, but he’s not a new face. In fact, he made history at BHS two years ago.
Athletic Sampson Jackson has returned to coaching after a one-year absence. He coached the boys program to its first-ever state championship in 2021-22.
“I’m beyond excited to be back,” Jackson said. “I talk a lot of times about coaching, and I say that once you become a coach to a kid, you’re never again a teacher only. You’re also a coach. That part of me feels fulfilled being back.
“We’ve had about two weeks of practice. It feels like the first week I ever coached again.”
Jackson said the reason he stepped down as the boys coach following the state championship was that he wanted to focus all his energies on being the athletic director and supporting all the school’s student-athletes.
However, he saw a need with the girls basketball program that he wanted to step in personally and address.
“I wanted to be available to a group of girls who have gone through a few head coaches,” Jackson said. “That’s not anybody’s fault, but that’s just what it’s been. This group of girls has always had talent. It’s just putting it all together.”
Jackson said the biggest thing is getting every player to understand the ins and outs of the game. He said he remarked to somebody that if all he cared about was simply winning, he’d “give the ball to certain people and tell everybody else to move.”
He does want to win games, but Jackson wants his players to understand what to do in any situation that arises in a game. That can lead to wins and, perhaps, a postseason run.
Bradford (no matter who its coach has been) has been no stranger to the playoffs, but taking that next step has been the hard part. Since winning their only state title in 1994-95, the Tornadoes have advanced past the first round of the playoffs only four times in 13 appearances.
Yet most of the players on this team return from a 2022-23 season in which the Tornadoes battled eventual Final-Four team Providence in the first round of the playoffs before losing 58-46. Plus, that game was played after last season’s coach resigned.
So, in looking at his new team’s talent level, Jackson sees a team that is capable of doing great things. First, there’s the experience factor. Of the 13 players, six are seniors and five are juniors. Second, it’s a team with height, with two or three players over 6 feet and another couple measuring in at around 5-9. Third, it’s a team that can achieve balance with its guard and post play.
“The biggest thing is just teaching them the knowledge of the game,” Jackson said.
Jackson said the players ask him if he’s going to get them to Lakeland, where the state semifinal and championship games are held. His response has been that it’s not ultimately on him. It’s on the players — the work they do and the standards they hold themselves to.
For example, the players now know how Jackson’s practices are structured and what they’re supposed to do at any given time. They don’t wait for Jackson to tell them what to do; they’re already ready and waiting to go.
Jackson said that may seem like a little thing, but it can mean so much.
“No matter how good of a coach you are, a championship team truly isn’t a championship team until the players act like champions,” he said.
Road to coaching
Jackson played basketball when he was a student at Union County High School. As a senior in 2007-08, he led the Tigers in assists (4.2 per game) and steals (56 total), while he was second in scoring (8.8 points per game).
Ironically, it was a game against Bradford during his junior year that got him thinking about coaching.
“I actually had an injury against Bradford,” Jackson said. “When I had that injury, it was kind of an eye-opener to basketball maybe not being the key to everything, but I knew I loved the game and that I wanted to stay around it.”
In college, Jackson participated in an internship with the University of Florida women’s basketball team. In working with and observing Head Coach Amanda Butler, Jackson said he learned how important attention to details during practices is.
“She made sure the players were very attentive toward what it was she wanted to cover,” Jackson said. “That started with coaches’ meetings before practice, making sure all the coaches knew the objective for the day and then translating that through practice.”
Jackson coached for his high school alma mater from 2012 until 2015, filling the roles of a boys varsity assistant and boys junior varsity head coach. Union’s varsity team advanced to the Class 1A Final Four twice while Jackson was on the sideline.
In 2018, Jackson went to Bradford to be a boys varsity assistant to Head Coach Brent Roberts and to be the head coach of the boys JV team. Jackson was named the boys varsity head coach when Roberts resigned two years later.
Bradford went 15-11 in Jackson’s first year, ending the season with a loss in the district tournament semifinals. The following year, the Tornadoes won district, regional and the program’s first-ever state championship during an eight-game win streak to close out the season. Bradford won its two regional playoffs games and its state semifinal and championship games by an average margin of 19 points.
A new opportunity
Now that he’s back in coaching, Jackson is getting to learn his team and what kind of standards he expects players to reach for.
The players have a lot to say about what those standards are. For example, Jackson said practices were to begin at 3:45 p.m., but what he noticed was that they weren’t getting started until 3:50 or so. He talked to the team about that, with players saying that a 4 p.m. start would work better for them.
What happened? Practices now start at 4 p.m.
“If I put the ball in their court, then 4 is now the standard,” Jackson said. “Now, it’s not on me anymore; it’s on them.”
For Jackson, it’s not about coming in and saying everything should be done his way and his way only. He believes in having open communication with the players and knowing which battles to pick.
“One of the things I’ve learned in my coaching career is you can yell, and you can scream, but if everyone leaves, you have no one to yell and scream at,” Jackson said. “That approach to being a coach doesn’t necessarily work at this level.”
Another thing Jackson has learned as a coach is to identify each player’s role.
“If you don’t identify roles, that’s where confusion sets in,” Jackson said. “No one knows what’s expected of them.”
Jackson said he’s “super frank” with each player. For example, he’s told Jada Hankerson that if she doesn’t score eight points in a game, the Tornadoes will lose. He’s told Ajiyah Jackson that if she doesn’t score four points and grab four or five rebounds in a game, the Tornadoes will lose.
“No one is more important,” Jackson said. “It’s just different expectations for different roles.”
You can set benchmark standards and identify each player’s role, but that doesn’t mean things will always go smoothly. Jackson has been honest with his team — adversity is coming. That’s just life.
“It’s coming to every program,” Jackson said. “It’s just what happens. When it comes, that’s when things go left or right. If you know it’s coming, and it never comes, that’s OK. If you expect it, and it comes, we’ve already talked about our method of working through it.”
If Jackson needs to give his players an example of working through adversity, all he has to do is talk about his state-champion boys team. Players were in and out of the lineup for various reasons throughout the regular season, with the team experiencing two three-game losing streaks. The team had a losing record until it went on its run to the state title.
What the girls team does this year remains to be seen, but one thing for sure is that the new head coach is as excited as any of his players about getting the season started.
“I’m eager for that first game,” Jackson said.
The Tornadoes, who play in Class 3A, get the regular season started at home against Class 7A Creekside on Monday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m.
