White Plains, AL – Starting with a winning look on the helmets, Jennings hopes to plant a winning mindset inside the helmets at White Plains
Joe Medley
White Plains’ new-look football helmets offer a clue into how the Wildcats’ new head football coach thinks.
Starting with a winning look on the helmets, Jennings hopes to plant a winning mindset inside the helmets at White Plains
Blake Jennings stuck with the cat-head logo on one side and put winning mojo around it.
“I’ve always been a big fan of the Dallas Cowboys’ helmet,” he said while pointing to two blue center stripes with a white center. “That’s the stripe for the Dallas Cowboys’ helmet.
“I was at Ohatchee for 12 years, and one of the best years we ever had, we had the number on one side, and we had the logo on the other, and that’s what I wanted to go with.”
Jennings’ efforts to bring winning mojo to White Plains will start with looking like winners. The hope is that feeling like winners will soon follow.
He knows a thing or two about winning. He grew up with it in Alexandria and helped to bring it back to Ohatchee during his long stint as defensive coordinator.
Realizing a long-held dream in his first assignment as a head coach, he’s taken over a program that’s made the playoffs once in its 50 seasons. The Wildcats haven’t had a winning season since 2003.
Salute all of the coaches who have tried.
Salute Jennings for jumping at the chance to be the next man up, White Plains’ fourth in 10 years.
He’ll be the next to attempt White Plains’ chicken-or-egg dilemma. Which must come first, winning or keeping White Plains’ top talent down home at a time when player moves are begrudgingly accepted reality?
It’ll take salesmanship, and Jennings has at least two prominent buyers at White Plains. Long-time boys’ basketball coach Chris Randall enlisted in the cause, rejoining the football staff for the first time in eight years. Wrestling coach Todd Manning joined the football staff for the first time in four years.
Talk about all in.
Other buyers pay at Jennings’ favorite place, the weight room.
No shortcuts. He must build bodies that can compete with the bodies that Anniston, Handley, Jacksonville, Munford and others field in one of Class 4A’s toughest regions.
Jennings considers the weightroom his cultural enlightenment center and the day’s first practice field.
“We’ve said this from the get go, and I told this to the boys the first day I showed up at White Plains, after I was approved,” he said. “We’re going to build that culture in the weight room, and that’s what we’ve done this summer. It’s kind of been out M.O. this summer, get bigger, get stronger. …
“It’s going to be five days a week in the weight room for these guys, and then we go to football practice and them giving us everything they’ve got and doing the things that they’re asked to do, and that’s where it’ll begin to turn around.”
A scan of the team’s roster on Dragonfly, the AHSAA’s de facto eligibility clearinghouse, shows the challenge Jennings faces in year one. The far-right column shows grade, and the column shows precious few double-digit numbers.
White Plains bulking up into a winner must start somewhere, and Jennings needs those 8s and 9s to become 10s, 11s and 12s in those new, pearl-white helmets with all of the winning touches.
If they stay with a one-time assistant coach of the year in Alabama, who invested in them all of his hopes of proving himself as a head coach, then maybe, just maybe, one day, White Plains can fit in a sentence with current-day Ohatchee, Alexandria and the Dallas Cowboys.
Wildcats facts
Things to know about White Plains football heading into the 2023 season:
—Blake Jennings enters his first season as a varsity head football coach. He previously served as Ohatchee’s defensive coordinator and was named the state’s Class 2A assistant coach of the year in 2019.
—White Plains finished 2-8 in 2022 and 1-5 in Class 4A, Region 4. The Wildcats seek their first winning season since going 6-4 in 2003. They’ve finished 5-5 five times since then.
—Key graduation losses from 2022 include five All-Calhoun County players: LB Brandon Hahm, LB Wade Thompson, RB L.J. Burns, WR Collin Spivey and OL/DL Brandon James.
—The following All-Calhoun County picks return: sophomore WR/DB Rodney Perry, senior QB/S Dylan Barksdale and junior OL Ty Roberts.
— No change in White Plains’ region alignment. The Wildcats battle Anniston, Cleburne County, Handley, Jacksonville, Munford and Talladega in one of Alabama’s toughest 4A regions.
— The non-region schedule includes a Nov. 3 home regular-season finale against Westbrook Christian, which features former Piedmont head coach Steve Smith. Familiar faces on his staff include former Piedmont defensive coordinator James Blanchard and former Donoho head coach Mark Sanders.
