He’s only been a Jacket for a few months, but Starkville High School assistant principal Jerrial Dawson has already been recognized for his growth as a leader in both education and athletics.
In September, Dawson was named one of the Mississippi Association of Coaches’ “Tomorrow’s 25,” a fellowship recognizing 25 coaching professionals in the state and providing access to professional development and resources toward developing student-athletes.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in sports administration at Belhaven, where he played basketball, and took an alternate route after finding a call to education. He got into coaching out of a love of sports, but that experience led him to a greater calling in education.
He was the head basketball coach at Morton from 2017 to 2022 when he stepped down to finish his dissertation on retaining Black male secondary teachers in central Mississippi and earn his doctorate in education at William Carey University. At that time he felt a call to administration and had no plans to return to coaching despite his love for the job, but that changed when an old friend – Starkville High boys basketball coach Anthony Carlyle – reached out to him with a chance to join his staff as an assistant coach while also taking on an administrative role at the high school.
“It means a lot for me because one of the key things I wanted was to have somebody with head coaching experience,” Carlyle said of having Dawson join his coaching staff. “We’ve known each other for years, we’re good friends but we’ve never worked together. When this opportunity came about we wanted to do everything we could to make that happen.”
“We speak a similar language when we talk basketball,” Dawson said of Carlyle. “We knew it would work. … It was more of a package deal to where it fell in the right place for both of us. I had no plans to come out of administration to coach, but I would have loved to come into any situation like this as an administrator and assistant coach to provide what I could, and this was just a great place to do it.”
Dawson knew Carlyle from past experiences coaching and from attending the same church. He called the opportunity to work with him a “no-brainer.”
“He’s been great,” Carlyle added. “He’s helped take some of the load off me in terms of practice and preparation. Just having that other voice, that other eye who has the experience being in the head coach’s chair. I’d be in trouble without him.”
Starkville was an attractive coaching job due to the young talent on the roster and the high standard of competition, along with the program’s record of success – seven 20-win seasons in the last 10 years and four state championships since 2010. Things have started well this season.
“We have a 9-3 record,” Dawson said. “It could be worse and it could be better, but every situation and every practice is all leading toward a bigger picture, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Dawson has applied the same principles that have gotten him this far as a coach and an educator, controlling the controllables and putting in the work with authenticity and purpose.
Throughout his career, he has simply followed his path. He felt a calling to do more once he got into education. For some time he thought that meant putting coaching on hold until his current opportunity came knocking. He trusted the process, he said, and now he is teaching his students and players to do the same.
“That’s the overall deal. You have to be who you are,” he said of his approach to life, teaching and coaching. “If I weren’t, I’d be fake. It wouldn’t be genuine, and the consistency of being genuine pays off. We see it daily with our team, we see it in our school as well, and it comes from being consistent in who you are, staying humble and even-keeled. The results fall the way they will, and you reap what you sow. If you sow the right seeds you will reap the benefits in due time.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 48 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
