BROOKS COUNTY, Ga. – Head coach of the Brooks County Trojans football team, Maurice Freeman, was named the Nike “Coach of the Year” last Friday at the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association awards celebration.
Coach Maurice Freeman is going on his 16th season at BCHS and has hit the 200 win mark as a Georgia coach so it does not come as a surprise for him to receive an accolade such as “Coach of the Year.”
But the job and goal at hand goes beyond the accolades.
Coach Freeman is looking for his team to, “finish the deal,” and win a state title in December.
However, giving his players an avenue to be successful in football and life is equally important to him. He described the experience like, “a million dollars,” to make the impact he has made on not only past but present generations and that he is, “more than happy,” to do his part in the community.
His recipe is:
- Having a heart.
- Being a God-fearing man.
- Working the players harder than they believe that they can work.
Even through all of what Coach Freeman does, he makes sure to do it in the memory of the Brooks County Three, most commonly known as the “BC3.”
BC3 consisted of three Brooks County football players – Jicarre Watkins, Johnnie Parker, and Shawn Waters.
On July 9th of 2013, the three were killed and one was injured after crashing into a tree on North Webster Road, north of Quitman.
The tragic accident left the community devastated, but one of the bigger reasons Coach Freeman continues to coach is because of them.
He wants to “save more,” kids than he lost.
He is already doing just that but he gives thanks to people like his mother who passed in 1999. She taught him the basic morals of life. He also thanks his coaches in the past who played a huge part in nurturing him and showing him who he needed to be.
Freeman gives special thanks to Hilda Callaway who was the high school’s secretary when he attended BCHS. She encouraged him to go to Florida A&M, major in physical education, pledge Phi Beta Sigma, and come back to BCHS to head coach. She said if he could win the school a state title, he could go on to do anything in life he wanted to do after that.
He did just that in his first year head coaching at BCHS in 1994.
The plan is to do it once more before it’s all said and done.
Brooks County will open up the regular season on the road against Mitchell County on August 23rd at 7:30pm.
