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The Tuscaloosa News
From 5-2, 98 pounds to coordinator: Alabama football coaches' high school career tales
- Story byThe Tuscaloosa News
- From 5-2, 98 pounds to coordinator: Alabama football coaches' high school career tales
JaMarcus Shephard earned his place as captain of the football team at Northrop High in Indiana on the field like anyone else.
Just not the field that lit up on Friday nights.
Shephard got word from his coach, Matt Stinson, in the summer of 2000 that his teammates had voted him the Bruins' captain despite the fact that he'd been a bench player to that point. Now the Alabama football co-offensive coordinator, Shephard earned the honor on the practice field, based strictly on attitude and effort. He ultimately took on a starting role weeks later and contributed significantly as a senior wide receiver, but the bedrock of respect he had from teammates was hard-earned.
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"My freshman year, I was 5-foot-2 and weighed 98 pounds," Shephard told The Tuscaloosa News. "I was a little guy. Maybe weighed 125 as a sophomore, 135 as a junior, and senior year I got to 155. ... I feel like I was the first one in the building in high school last to leave − mainly because I didn't have a ride home."
Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer's football career at Milbank High in South Dakota has been well-documented . He kicked and punted, played linebacker and wide receiver, the latter well enough to go on to Western Washington and then the University of Sioux Falls. But what about his staff? None of the other Alabama's assistant coaches can say they weighed just 98 pounds like Shephard, but they've got some remarkable tales just the same.
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Running backs coach Robert Gillespie
High school: Hattiesburg (Mississippi) High
Position: RB
Senior year:1997
Noteworthy: Nobody on the Alabama staff was a hotter recruit than Gillespie. He attended two of Hattiesburg's top programs − Oak Grove and Hattiesburg High − and had a slew of offers as a SuperPrep All-American whose highlights were regularly shown on a regional TV show, "Countdown to Signing Day." He rushed for 1,957 yards as a senior at Hattiesburg, but doesn't recall a chase for 2,000. "We had a statistician, but our coach was so old-school, he didn't show us the numbers. I rarely knew what I rushed for at the end of a game until the newspaper came out the next day," Gillespie said. Despite the hype, he was also an honor student. He nearly signed with LSU but settled on Florida just weeks before signing day. "I'd gone to almost every LSU home game my senior year, but decided to visit Florida," he said. "It's January. I left Mississippi, its 40 degrees and gray, I get off the plane, everybody's wearing shorts and flip-flops and tank tops. Sun was shining, and I remember looking at my mom and saying, 'This is going to make it hard on LSU.'"
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Defensive line coach Freddie Roach
High school: Killen (Alabama) Brooks
Position: RB/LB
Senior year: 2000
Noteworthy: Roach was a three-sport athlete at Brooks (football, basketball, track). He played quarterback until a coaching change resulted in a move to running back and linebacker. He carries a bitter senior memory of a 14-6 playoff loss to Fayette County, which was quarterbacked by former Crimson Tide QB Spencer Pennington. "We finished 10-2 and they beat us twice, end of the regular season, then the playoffs," Roach said. "It was a monsoon. My youngest brother got knocked out of the game, so we were down a corner." Roach's older brother, former Alabama wideout Tim Bowens, is now the head coach at Brooks. Roach is the only Alabama assistant who attended high school in Alabama, and the only one who played at UA.
Alabama defensive line coach Freddie Roach pictured during his high school playing days as a ball carrier at Killen (Ala.) Brooks High
Offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic
High school: Phoenix (Arizona) Gerard Catholic
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Position: OL/DL
Senior year: 1986
Noteworthy: Kapilovic was purely a high school lineman until his coach was inspired by Chicago Bears nose guard William "Refrigerator" Perry to try something different. "I think it was my junior year when the Fridge made it popular to put a big guy in the backfield. So our coach said, 'Let's put Kap back there.' So by pure luck, I got a carry in a short-yardage situation and I popped it for like 40 yards, so now he thinks, 'Let's make him a running back.' I blew out my ankle in the third practice of the next week." Kapilovic cites a "change in administration" as the cause for a massive drop in enrollment while he was at Gerard Catholic. "I was a knucklehead and stayed. I should've gone, but I stayed and said we're going to keep fighting. We ended up with somewhere between 300 to 350 kids in the middle of Phoenix playing against schools with 1,500-2,000 kids." Kapilovic was briefly a high school teammates of Jeff Feagles, who holds the NFL career record for punts (1,713) and punt yardage (71,211). Feagles was a senior when Kapilovic was a freshman.
Safeties coach Colin Hitschler
High school: Penn Charter (Philadelphia)
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Position: QB/OLB/C
Senior year: 2004
Noteworthy: Hitschler was more successful as a prep wrestler than football player, and wrestled collegiately at Penn. But for a while, he was a high school quarterback at Penn Charter until a future four-time Pro Bowl passer took over. "I was a pretty good high school quarterback, but then Matt Ryan came in, and that ended it," Hitschler said. He ended up playing outside linebacker and center while Ryan embarked on what would become a 14-year career with the Atlanta Falcons . Another notable teammate of Hitschler's: former University of Virginia basketball star and 2008 NBA Draft pick Sean Singletary was Ryan's top receiving target at Penn Charter.
Tight ends coach Bryan Ellis
High school: Peach County (Georgia) High
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Position: QB
Senior year: 2006
Noteworthy: Ellis spent most of his high school career at Tift Area Academy in Tifton, Georgia, where he was coached by his father, but transferred to a state powerhouse in Peach County for his senior year. "It was like playing quarterback at Alabama. You just kind of picked a guy out and you threw it to them. I'd throw it 4 yards and they'd go 56 yards, so the next day in the newspaper, I'd thrown a 60-yard touchdown pass," Ellis said. "I think we had 12 guys sign with colleges, and five or six of them went into the SEC." The transfer resulted in a state championship, and Ellis has remarkable recall of it. "We beat Shaw on Dec. 16 2006, and it was 73 degrees outside," Ellis added. "Won it 28-7, and celebrated a long time after that one." Ellis played collegiately at UAB.
Outside linebackers coach Christian Robinson
High school: Norcross (Georgia) Greater Atlanta Christian
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Position: TE/OLB
Senior year: 2007
Noteworthy: Former Alabama coach Nick Saban's most notable recruiting class, perhaps, was the 2008 group of prospects that included Julio Jones and Mark Ingram , which helped key the 2009 national championship run. Robinson could've been a part of it. A four-star recruit at the time, Robinson said he was offered a scholarship by Saban along with offers from several other SEC schools, but landed at Georgia. Coached in high school by his father, Ken, Robinson wanted to play offense at the college level but was recruited as a linebacker, the same position his dad played at South Carolina. "I probably paid too much attention to how many stars I had," Robinson said. "But my dad told me, 'You know, when you get there, nobody has any stars.' I learned that was true very quickly."
Special teams analyst Jay Nunez
High school: Alva (Oklahoma) High
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Position: OL/DL
Senior year: 2004
Noteworthy: Nunez sustained the most devastating of knee injuries in the season opener of his junior year, tearing his ACL, PCL, LCL and both menisci. "Six screws hold this thing together," he said, pointing to the knee, "... and I may or may not have been a little fat and out of shape." Still, he came back as a senior to be named Oklahoma's District 1-2A Offensive Lineman of the Year . Nunez also said he'd put the string of unique mascots he's represented as a player and coach against anyone's: He has been an Alva High Gold Bug, a Pittsburgh State Gorilla, a Minnesota Golden Gopher, a Southern Illinois Saluki, an Eastern Michigan Eagle (he instead claims EMU's former mascot, the Herons) and, finally, the Oklahoma Sooners and Crimson Tide.
Cornerbacks coach Maurice Linguist
High school: Mesquite (Texas) High
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Position: RB/CB
Senior year: 2001
Noteworthy: Not many UA assistants have a high school state championship ring, but count Linguist among them. The Dallas native's Mesquite Wildcats ran the table in 2001 with a 15-0 record, nipping Taft 14-13 for the state 5A Division I crown. Linguist transitioned from a running back as a sophomore to a two-way player as a junior and finally a full-time cornerback as a senior on the title team. Linguist said he stays in touch with his coach at Mesquite, Steve Halpin, about once a month.
Offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan
High school: Saline (Michigan) High Hornets
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Position: QB
Senior year: 2005
Noteworthy: Also played baseball (pitcher, third base); walked on at Michigan as a quarterback. Coached quarterbacks at Saline in 2010 after graduating from UM.
Defensive coordinator Kane Wommack
High school: Fayetteville (Arkansas) High Bulldogs
Position: LB
Senior year: 2004
Noteworthy: Team captain, named Mr. Bulldog.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama football coaching staff reveals tales of their HS playing days
