Today’s interviewee is Clinch County coach Jim Dickerson, whose team is playing Charlton County tonight in a rivalry also known as The Swamp War. Dickerson is coaching for the first time since 2018, when he retired after more than 30 years of coaching, 15 as head coach, at his alma mater. Dickerson has led the Panthers to an 8-1 record and the No. 5 ranking in Class A Division II.
1. What drew you to come out of retirement? “The bottom line was I met the state of Georgia retirement criteria. I had my 30 years, and at the time, I was tired. We’d come off of a really good run in football where we had won the state title [2015], made it to semis [2016], won it [2017] and won it [2018]. Even though they were great seasons, they were long seasons. I think I made a decision when I was tired, to be honest with you. I had a couple of opportunities to go other places, but I did all 30 years in Clinch County, and this is where my heart is. This is where my home is. I’ve lived here, I’ve graduated from this high school, and I had no desire to go anywhere else. I didn’t have any vision or desire to get back into it, but when the opportunity came up, they didn’t have to ask me twice. The big thing was, not only did Coach Tison [previous coach Don Tison Jr.] get out of it, but we also lost two longtime assistants in Chase Daniel and Winston Peterson, so I kind of stepped into it with a new coaching staff, and they’ve been great.”
2. What is so important about The Swamp War rivalry? “They live on the east side of the [Okefenokee] Swamp, and we’re on the west side. The only thing between us is a bunch of swampy land, but that’s why it’s called The Swamp War, because the Okefenokee Swamp literally divides the two of us. The two programs down in southeast Georgia have been really successful. So we’ve not only been very competitive with each other for state championships, but usually the winner of that game has determined the region championship. If we win tomorrow night, we’re going to wind up being tied for first in our region. And if we lose to them, we’re going to drop all the way to fourth. If they win, obviously they’re going to have a higher seed. But there’s a lot at stake in terms of seeding for the playoffs. But it’s always a great game, always a very close game.” [The series is tied 31-31-1.]
3. What has led to Clinch County’s success so far this season, and what are the expectations for the last few weeks? “We still don’t think we’ve played our best football because we’ve had games that we’ve played really well on defense, but then not so good on offense, and then vice-versa. In five of the games that we’ve won, we’ve been behind at halftime. So we really want to put together a complete game – a great offensive game, a great defensive game and four good quarters, not just a half. The motto hasn’t changed that I used back when I was the head coach before. At the end of the day, we want to run the football, we want to stop the run, and we want to win the turnovers. You notice nowhere do I bring up passing. We’ve obviously got to pass the ball a little bit, and we’ve got to defend the pass, but at the end of the day I think if we win the running game and we win the turnovers, I think we win the football game. Aaron Bryant, he’s been our bell cow. We have six seniors on the team, but only four playing right now, but Aaron Bryant is one of them, and he’s our guy. You may call him a quarterback, but he’s leading the team in rushing yards and on defense. I get mad when he’s not out there. We want him on the field at all times. We think the state championship will be between us, Irwin [County] and Brooks [County]. We think one of the three of us is certainly going to be playing for a state championship. We know there are other good teams out there, but we have high expectations in Clinch County, not only as coaches, but the community holds us to a high standard.” [Irwin County is ranked No. 3, Brooks County No. 4 and Clinch County No. 5. They are in the same region. One of the three won a state title every season from 2017 to 2021.]
4. What did you learn from your one loss against Brooks County, and how did you bounce back to beat Irwin County the following week? “We don’t want to take anything away from Brooks County because they literally took us to the woodshed that night. The last game that we played before them was Mitchell County. The following week we had an off week. The next week, we were set to play Irwin, and it got canceled due to bad weather. And the week after that, we were set to play Charlton County, and it was canceled due to the hurricane. Finally, the fourth week we played Brooks. It was a month in between games for us, and we’re not going to use that as an excuse. But, you know, it’s hard to not play a football game for a month and be very sharp. [We learned] a lot of things. I don’t know if there is one in particular. We just had to work on us. We needed to get better as a football team in a lot of areas. They didn’t just beat us in one area. They beat us in about every area you could care to mention. So we just needed to get better as a football team.”
- Interview by Ansley Gavlak
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