Jessie steps in to lead Jefferson Middle
When the Jefferson Middle School football team takes the field in 2025, it will have a new head coach — but not an unfamiliar one.
Sean Jessie, who previously served as the team’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, will take the reins for the Eagles this season. Jessie also teaches physical education at JMS.
He replaces Rodney Ellison, who accepted a position as offensive coordinator at Knoxville’s West High School after three seasons as Jefferson’s head coach.
The Eagles have struggled over the past two seasons, fielding teams largely composed of underclassmen. In 2024, Jefferson posted just one win, as most of its roster consisted of seventh-graders.
“It’s an eighth-grade league, and when you have 13-year-olds competing against some 15-year-olds, it’s tough,” Jessie said. “We were pretty competitive last year, and hopefully, we’ll be on the other side of some of those close games this year.
“I’m excited and grateful to have this opportunity.”
Jessie, 47, is no stranger to scholastic football in Anderson County. He was the offensive coordinator at Anderson County High School from 2016 to 2021 before stepping away from the high school.
“I left Anderson County right before they won the state championship,” he said. “It was just the grind.”
It was Ellison who talked Jessie — who also served a stint as offensive coordinator at Clinton High School —out of his brief retirement from coaching.
“Rodney and I have been really good friends for more than 20 years,” Jessie recalled Monday afternoon. “He asked me if I wanted to come to Jefferson and coach football, and I said, ‘No, I’m done.’
“He said there was a PE job opening here, and I told him that if I got that job, we could talk about it.”
The two friends, who began their coaching careers together at Jacksboro Middle School in Campbell County, did just that.
“It all just worked out,” Jessie said. “I found a home coaching in middle school. It’s funny. When Rodney and I began coaching at Jacksboro in 2000, he was the head coach and I replaced him there, too.
“The intensity in middle school is different than it is in high school. It’s important to them, but in middle school, you’re teaching kids how to play. It’s about the basics and fundamentals.”
High school football, he noted, is a different beast.
“In high school, it’s all about the big game on Friday night,” Jessie said. “It’s about getting from one Friday night to the next.
“In middle school, we try to treat our players like they’re high school players and prepare them to succeed at the next level.”
