PREP FOOTBALL: Longtime Greenwood assistant Young chosen to succeed Jones

It didn't take long for the Greenwood Board of Education to find a replacement for veteran football coach Rick Jones, and they didn't have to look far either.

The board voted to hire longtime assistant Chris Young during a special school board meeting Wednesday evening.

It took less than a week to tap Young as the replacement for Jones, who told his team on Friday afternoon he would be leaving for a job in the Southeastern Conference. The 65-year-old is taking a job as a consultant on new University of Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz's staff.

Young, who was hired at Greenwood in 2000, is honored to get the chance to lead the Bulldog football program.

"This community is so supportive of its school," Young said. "It's a great place to be. There's a tremendous sense of community pride. To be a part of it and the leader of the football program is just a tremendous honor."

Young, a 1995 Fort Smith Northside graduate, has spent 20 seasons as an assistant coach at Greenwood. He helped the Bulldogs to nine state titles and three state runner-up finishes. He's the son of longtime Grizzlies coach Joe Fred Young, who won a state title in 1987.

The 42-year-old Central Arkansas graduate replaces Jones, who guided the Bulldogs since 2004 and led them to eight state titles.

Young said he has learned plenty by spending 16 years under Jones.

"One of the best things he does is coach coaches," Young said. "He's able to get everything out of his coaches. We have a tremendous staff. I've got a staff with five former head coaches and two former players who won state championships who played for me.

He accepted the job as athletic director of Cabot last April but resigned less than two weeks later and returned to Greenwood.

He said he missed coaching and missed the relationships with the players.

"I figured out pretty quick I was meant to be in coaching," Young said. "I'm just thrilled Greenwood took me back and very excited how things turned out."

Greenwood athletic director Dustin Smith said Young's history at Greenwood made the choice an easy one. In addition to being an assistant football coach for 20 years and offensive coordinator since 2009, he's been an assistant principal since 2011 and also served as boys and girls soccer coach from 2000-13.

"It was a logical choice," Smith said. "The success we've had, he's been a common denominator for that for 20 years. It's hard to argue. He knows it inside and out.

"He's been an integral part of that whole process. That's hard to trump."

Greenwood had won one state title before Jones came to town in 2004, but he led the Bulldogs to titles in 2005-07, 2010-12, along with 2017 and 2018 and went 185-26. Jones has an overall career record of 317-74.

It won't be the first foray into the college coaching ranks for Jones. He coached wide receivers and running backs at Missouri State from 1992-94 before going to Broken Arrow, Okla., as head coach and then coming to Greenwood in 2004.

Preps Sports on 02/20/2020

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