News

Jun 21, 2023

Jasper's Reeves speaks to Rotary Club

Jasper football coach David Reeves speaks to the Jasper Rotary Club on Tuesday. The Vikings open the season at home vs. Cullman on Sept. 1. New Jasper head football coach David Reeves highlighted the

Jasper football coach David Reeves speaks to the Jasper Rotary Club on Tuesday. The Vikings open the season at home vs. Cullman on Sept. 1.

New Jasper head football coach David Reeves highlighted the upcoming season while speaking to the Jasper Rotary Club earlier this week.

Reeves touched on getting the job and what fans can expect this season with the opener against Cullman less than a month away.

Reeves spent the last six years as the defensive coordinator at UAB and was twice a finalist for the Broyles Award — given to the top assistant college coach in the country.

Reeves inherits a team that has gone 13-18 over the last three years. He remembers all about the Vikings during his time as an assistant at Athens.

“Going back to my days as a high school coach, Jasper was always a place that had a certain aura about it,” Reeves said. “I can remember in 2000, Jasper played Russellville in a mud bowl in the state quarterfinals. We were playing Homewood and we thought we were going to meet up with them.”

Both Athens and Jasper lost that night.

“My focus and goal are to return us back to — not just a good season here and a couple of good seasons there, but to the days when everyone feared playing Jasper. They knew they were going to be the most physical team on the field. They knew they were going to be the best coached team. They knew they were going to dominate every aspect. That’s who I want us to be,” Reeves said.

Jasper has a small senior class of 11 this season. New coaches on the staff include offensive coordinator Bo Chapman, who comes to Jasper from Gordo. Defensive coordinator Kyle Butler returns.

“We’re going through a process right now. Our guys are accepting the challenge on a daily basis,” said Reeves who has two tenets for this year’s team — everything counts and do it better than it’s been done before. “We feel like at the end of this process we are going to get the results that we want.”

Jasper plays a jamboree game at Corner on Aug. 25 before the season opener at home against Cullman the following week.

“We needed to play some type of game before we played Cullman

because it’s going to be an adjustment for all of our coaches being our first time together and an adjustment for our players seeing me on game day,” Reeves said.