Dexter FB coach can empathize with Malden counterpart on Friday

Third-year Dexter High School football coach Chad Jamerson speaks with his team during a break in a recent jamboree at Portageville High School.

Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

Dexter High School football coach Chad Jamerson is certainly going to do everything that he can to ensure that his team prevails over Malden on Friday in both team’s regular season opening game. However, there may be a part of Jamerson to empathize with his counterpart, first-year Green Wave coach Treston Pulley, because Jamerson has walked in Pulley’s shoes, as he tries to begin the process of building a program in its infancy.

“The best way to say this is,” Jamerson said of building any high school program, “that you have to stay the course.”

When Jamerson took over the East Prairie High School program, he lost his first 11 games and 19 of 20 games over the first two seasons.

“You’re going to see a lot of adversity in that first year when you are trying to implement the program,” Jamerson said. “But you’ve got to trust your vision, and you’ve got to stick with it, no matter what.”

Pulley knows this to be true. He was a first-year head coach at his alma mater, Sikeston High School, in 2021, before being let go following last season.

Jamerson recalled how he switched offensive systems in the midst of his early struggles, and he regrets doing that to this day.

“I wanted to run the Wing-T (offense),” Jamerson said. “We were young and inexperienced and had to grow a lot.

“The first two weeks, the Wing-T didn’t work, and we scrapped that offense. That may have been one of the biggest mistakes I made in my first year. I didn’t believe in what I knew.”

Those lessons are less painful to think about today, as Jamerson righted the Eagles’ ship and won seven games in his third season and ultimately led the program to four winning seasons before taking the Dexter top job in 2022.

“You’ve got to be true to yourself,” Jamerson said. “You’ve got to be sure to tailor what you do to your kids. Coaches want to run the Spread (offense),” well, sometimes you don’t have the kids to run the Spread. Coaches want to run a Tight defense, well, sometimes you don’t have that nose to run the Tight defense.

“So, you’ve got to be true to yourself. You’ve got to trust your vision and you’ve got to do what you do, as (Hall of Fame NFL coach) Tony Dungy used to say.”