NHSACA Executive Board Monthly Newsletter

by Bubba Davis NHSACA 2nd Vice President

Hello, NHSACA Members! Hopefully your 2025 school year is off to a great start. In Mississippi, basketball teams are starting tournament play and spring sports are preparing for their first contest. Spring sports in Mississippi has to deal with unstable weather every week. January was very cold and wet. The rain was needed all over the state because last summer was extremely dry. We had some unwelcome snow in February. The Gulf Coast, where snow is a rare sighting, was hit with ten inches and everything was shut down for several days.

Our executive Directors, Tim and Scott are staying busy preparing for the National Convention in Rapid City, South Dakota that will take place on June 21-25, 2025. The executive board has been busy scoring the nominees for “National Coach of the Year.” The Sports Chairs should begin contacting the “Coach of The Year” finalists, to help them register and prepare them for their travel to Rapid City for the “Coach of the Year” banquet and coaching clinic. The NHSACA website should be updated soon and more clinic information will be provided. Later this month, the executive board will have our spring Zoom board meeting.

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Frank Broyles “Assistant Coach of the Year” banquet in Hot Springs, Arkansas—it was a great event for the high school football assistant coaches to be honored and recognized. Each state can take part in this wonderful program, I would encourage every state to get involved and get to experience this event. Every state has great assistant coaches that would love to be honored for the hard work that they do.

I have been blessed with some great assistant coaches during my years and my success as a high school head coach was because of those assistants who worked so hard with me. Assistant coaches and their families became a family within a family. These men have a special place in my life and for all they did for me. These men were special and they had special wives. One wife from this group gave me a copy of “A Story of Support” and I would like to share it with you.

“A Story of Support”

“I remember having my own identity before marrying my husband and then realized how quickly I lost it. I am now a Coaches Wife. HA! I have always been involved with the game of football and absolutely love it. I am not sure I could ever be happy without Friday night games and weekday practices.

Being a coach’s wife is not an easy task, but I ask what in life is? Is there any profession out there that doesn’t have its negative parts to it? Instead of dwelling on all the uncertainty of where you may have to live or why your husbands aren’t at home, smile and tell yourself that your husbands are out there giving children, young men and grown men a wonderful chance in life to be the best they can be on and off the field. Our Coaches are admired by people of all ages and at the end of a long day, night or even season, having your Coach walk through your door whether he is in a good mood or bad one, should be the BEST feeling in the world because as admired as he is by the outside world, he puts admiration in your hands. Because of wives, they are able to spend the time necessary to take their teams to the next level without having to worry about their children being taken care of, dinner on the table, a clean home, bills paid, etc.! What an honor to me that my Coach knows all of those things are taken care of and he was able to clear his head for another long day in the life of a Coach.

I have no regrets in life when it has come to making my decision to marry a Coach. I am always in the stands on Friday night to cheer him on and he always glances up in the stands to find me in my regular seat. He raises his arm in the air that has white tape wrapped around his wrist and opens and closes his fist to show me that he knows I am there. After the game, I can never get on the field fast enough to tell him how proud I am and of course answer a few questions he may ask, like, “how did you think my defense looked?”

I have taken the time to learn the game of football so that I could carry on conversations with him. The greatest joy in the world to me is seeing the ones I love most happy! I know I am a strong, confident, successful woman and being a coach’s wife just assures me on a daily basis that there is nothing in the world I cannot do. My husband said it all when we were at his banquet. He stood up and said, there aren’t many women in the world that could be married to me. In fact, there is only one. To be a Coach’s wife you must have thick skin. To quote him, he continued to say “How fortunate I am to have found a best friend, wonderful wife, great mother and #1 cheerleader all in one woman. I owe all my success to my wife for allowing me the time to fulfill my dreams!” To me that was my fairy tale ending! I have it all…YES, it is possible to be a Coach’s wife and know that you hold their hearts in the palm of your hand! They are tough on the field and sometimes tough at the home front, but deep down inside they are human and need their wives’ support. Stick with them, to me there is nothing better than to marry a Coach! I look at our life as an adventure and as long as we are together as a family, there are no mountains too high to climb. Love your Coach and above all support him.”

Head coaches make sure you thank your assistant coaches and tell their wives how important their husband is to your program. I look forward to seeing everyone in Rapid City in June. As my friends out West would say, “Ride for the brand.”