North Side learning under new coach Lowe

Monday morning didn’t feel like a typical June day in Jackson.

The sky was overcast. A nice breeze was blowing. Temperatures were in the 60s or 70s. Not where they usually are this time of year in the 80s or 90s.

“We’re blessed today. We’ll take it however long it lasts,” said first-year North Side head football coach Woodrow Lowe Jr. “It helps now in that it’s easier for the guys to concentrate on what we’re teaching instead of worrying about being hot.

“So we’ll take advantage of that as much as we can.”

North Side is Lowe’s third stop as a high school head football coach after stints at Bolivar and Fayette-Ware in the past decade.

He was announced as the Indians’ head coach just before Christmas and said his first spring leading the Indians went well.

“We changed up a lot on both defense and offense, and the guys responded well,” Lowe said. “We’re in some different looks than what they ran last year, but they worked hard to learn what they could as we really worked on putting in the basics with plans of building on that in the summer and in July when we start to work toward the season.”

One thing that’s different at North Side compared to his previous stops is how many players he has on the roster in the first season. Lowe had to increase Bolivar’s roster from about 30 players when he took over to more than 100 by the end of his second year.

That’s not something he has to do this year.

“We’ve got 70 guys here today with a few out, so we’re at nearly 80,” Lowe said, adding that’s not counting incoming freshmen.

During workouts in the weight room on Monday, leadership on the team began to show as a couple of the older players were quick to make sure their younger teammates stayed focused on what they were doing in agility drills.

The Indians are coming off a season in which they went 1-9 and scored a total of 57 points in three games – 39 of those points coming in their win.

The Indians’ season was thrown into a state of disarray when former coach Jesse Powell resigned less than a week before the first game of the season. Cedric Hampton served as interim coach and is coaching the defensive line this year.

“These guys came into the season ready to work because they wanted to show they’re better than what they appeared to be last year,” Lowe said. “And it was a tough year, but these guys fought through it and I think people will see a more competitive team out there this year.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news