West Point defensive coordinator Charles Herron has been with the Green Wave for 11 years of his 14-year coaching career, and he still treats every day with the enthusiasm of his first day.
West Point is 2-2 after a 21-7 win at Neshoba Central. The team is growing into form, thanks in part to strong defensive performances. They reflect the team’s and Herron’s shared values of attention to detail and working toward an end goal each season, the goal of “12-6,” the date of the state championship game.
“The amazing thing is learning how to win, learning how to play four-quarter games,” Herron said. “We’ve played against three playoff teams, three contenders. We’re already building the motors and the mindset for it, we’re growing from it. We don’t take the adversity as a detriment. We look at it as a learning curve to find a way to get better.”
During games Herron can be seen on the sideline with as much energy as one of the defensive players, calling out plays and assignments and signaling with his shiny white gloves.
He wears them to help the signals stand out to his players from the sideline, a throwback to his days as a defensive back and defensive backs coach.
Herron played defensive back at Grenada High School, operating as an overhang. The role is important, requiring the versatility and vision to read the play on the fly and react where needed on a pass or run play.
After high school, Herron played at Northwest Mississippi Community College and attended Mississippi State University when his playing career ended. He graduated in 2011 and began teaching and coaching at West Point High School that same year.
It was at MSU that he decided to pursue teaching, but his decision to go into coaching stemmed from two other encounters. The first was a student teaching role at Noxubee County, where he got to know first-year head coach Tyrone Shorter – who now leads Class 4A defending champion Louisville. The second was an encounter with a young assistant coach at Louisville, Chris Jones – now a state championship head coach at powerhouse Starkville High.
Those connections stuck with Herron, particularly his friendship with Jones.
“That’s where all my focus on detail comes from,” he said of working with Jones. “He’s so detailed and he taught me that you can’t coach it unless you know it from beginning to end. I always try to be detailed for my kids.”
The most important connection Herron made however was at West Point. Assistant coach Steve Cannon, a former classmate at MSU, became a coach with the Green Wave and a chance encounter with Herron post-graduation led to a job offer.
“This job actually found me, I found my purpose,” Herron said. “I came from a long line of educators, my parents and both my sisters are teachers. I always prided myself on being a student before athlete, and that’s another reason why I get my guys to have pride in being sound and detailed.”
Herron stayed with the program from 2011 to 2018 before joining Jones’ staff at Starkville as defensive coordinator in 2019, returning to West Point in 2022 in the same role. Working for the now retired Chris Chambless, who Herron calls the GOAT (that’s Greatest Of All Time), and the rest of the West Point staff helped shape him into who he is today.
He wants to be a head coach himself one day, but only when the time comes. The coaching path found him before, and he plans to follow where it leads him.
“Yes sir, when God calls me to it,” he said when asked if he wanted to be a head coach. “As long as he wants me with these guys I’ll be here with these guys. I just pray when it’s my turn I can have position coaches that stay and build a program the way we do here. I’ve had the opportunities. I just love it here.”
He calls the rest of the staff his working family, and most of them have been here longer than him. In a decade at West Point the biggest changes have been this year with offensive coordinator Brett Morgan’s promotion to head coach. Morgan is another connection Herron made early on in his career, and Herron believes they can add another ring to their already impressive collections.
It’s all about the community here,” he said of West Point. “I’m not even from here but this community just took us in. When you do it for the love you have a community and group of kids that will commit. We’re committed to this group of kids and the kids are committed to us. We’re committed to 12-6.”
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