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On Monday, Pike County Schools officially named veteran baseball coach Wendell Jackson as the new Head Baseball Coach at Goshen High School.

Jackson replaces former coach Chandler Avant, who accepted a position at Montgomery-Catholic last month. Jackson comes to Goshen after spending the past three seasons as the head coach at Clarke County High School in Grove Hill. Jackson’s Clarke County teams won two area championships in his three seasons along with making it to the Elite 8 in 2022.

“I was intrigued with (Goshen) being closer to my family,” Jackson said of his decision to come to Goshen. “I called (Athletic Director Don) Moore and talked to him about it and I went and visited with him and he kind of sold it on me. He seems like a fine man. The superintendent, Dr. (Mark) Brazzell wanted to meet me and I could listen to him and his baseball stories for hours. It just seemed like a really good fit.”

Jackson is a native of Holtville – also know as Slap-Out – and played baseball at Holtville before going on to play college baseball at Shelton State Community College and the University of West Alabama in Livingston. He finished his degree at Faulkner University and started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Faulkner.

Jackson took his first head-coaching job at his alma mater, Holtville High School in 1998. His Holtville teams won two area championships and made it to the Elite 8 in 2002, while he was named 1A-4A Metro Coach of the Year in 2022.

In 2004, Jackson took over at Class 4A Hillcrest-Evergreen and then spent 11 seasons as the head coach at 4A Elmore County. In 2017, Jackson accepted a position as an assistant football, baseball and basketball coach at 7A Prattville High School. He served on the coaching staff at Prattville until taking over at Clarke County in 2020.

“I stepped down and took an assistant job at Prattville under Kevin Hall and that’s kind of where I got rejuvenated and wanted to be back in a head coaching position,” Jackson recalled.

Earlier this month, Goshen hired former Charles Henderson and Alabama State standout Jabronski Williams as an assistant baseball coach. Jackson will also serve as an assistant football coach at Goshen. He said his primary goal at Goshen is to develop the young players at the school.

“Back in the late 80s and early 90s, Goshen was pretty dang good,” Jackson said. “One of my goals would be to get there and develop our players. We want to get with the younger kids and start developing the talent. The coaches have really talked up the older kids and told me that there is some really talented seniors and juniors coming in.

“It seems like a good place to start developing talent. I know the kids at Goshen are athletic, I’ve talked to both the football and basketball coaches and they talked up how athletic the kids at Goshen are.”