Cross Country begins this week with new coach at Bob Jones
Bob Jones Cross Country coach JIm Presnell
Jim Presnell is a new face around school this year but he knows all about Madison and Bob Jones High School. The newest member of the coaching ranks has easily the longest season of the school year. In the fall he coaches cross country. In the winter he coaches indoor track. And in the spring he will coach Track and Field.
Presnell will draw on over 30 years coaching experience both in high school and in college. He coached cross country at Milligan College, a small Christian Liberal Arts school nestled in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains near Johnson City, Tennessee.
Most recently he coached at Oxford High School in Oxford, Alabama. There, his team came to regional meets at Bob Jones so he was familiar with the school. Former coach Robin Gaines stepped down over the summer and Presnell was hired soon after interviewing with Principal Robbie Parker.
“When the job opened up here, knowing what an athletic program they have and the facilities they have because we had competed up here against them, I thought what a nice job if I could possibly get it,” Presnell said. “There is a little added pressure to follow Coach Gaines and his success in the program and to try to build upon that.”
“The kids here are different than anyplace I have ever been. They are a different mixture because people in Madison come from varied backgrounds. They mesh well. We got kids from several nationalities but Bob Jones makes it to where you’re a part of something. The pride they have in the school is obvious. I don’t know all the teachers here yet but I know they are outstanding because of the reputation.”
“We started practice August 6,” Presnell said of cross country.
The team is working toward the Bob Jones Invitational which they will host on September 29. In the meantime, the cross country teams will compete at Chickasaw Trails at the site of the state championship meet on September 8, Nashville on Sept. 22 and Furman University later on in the fall.
“I’m anxious to see what we can do when we start the running meets,” Presnell said. “Mr. Parker said he wanted us to go where the competition was. I hope we are able to develop above state championships. Nike has a national meet where teams qualify from all over the nation and that has always been a goal of mine.”
Sophomore Peyton Tyler is one of the top distance runners in the state, in fact he is ranked second in boys cross country in Alabama. He finished 33rd at the state cross country meet last season.
Presnell said that he has five strong runners on the boy’s team including the only senior, David Hergenroeder, who finished 77th at the state meet last year.
The Bob Jones girl’s team finished third in the state last season and preseason is ranked second. Four girls are ranked in the top 30.
He will also coach the indoor track team at Bob Jones. They can start practice Nov. 16 with first event on Dec. 7. Indoor track was reinstated as a championship sport by the AHSAA in 2012 and now hold events at the new Birmingham CrossPlex, a 750,000 square foot, multi-purpose athletic facility with a state of the art six lane oval track that takes ten minutes to raise or lower for banked corners. The facility also has dual horizontal runways for pole vault, long jump and triple jump and dual high jump approaches can be configured along with dual throwing sectors for shot-put.
