Pope’s season-ending win in varsity football was the last game for a longtime coach in the Cobb County School District.
Jerry Mahon, an assistant coach for the Greyhounds the last 10 years, is retiring, bringing to a close a 50-year career in coaching and teaching that included tenures at Lassiter and Wheeler.
He’s been Pope’s offensive line coach, and his players excelled as the Greyhounds won 35–14, rushing for 385 yards against Riverwood.
“His countless hours of hard work and commitment have made Pope Football a better program,” Pope head coach Sean O’Sullivan said in a release issued by the Cobb school district.
“It has been a true pleasure having such a veteran coach on staff. We appreciate all his support and the positive impact he’s had on our team and community.”
Mahon said he had wanted to be a coach since he was in eighth grade, and started in Mississippi in 1976. After also coaching in Alabama, he moved to Georgia in 1997, and was an assistant and head coach at Lassiter.
That’s where he coached his son Jerry, Jr., an offensive lineman for the Trojans in the late 90s, and said “he’s one of the best centers I ever coached, so the opportunity to coach my son was a real thrill.”
In 2005, Mahon moved to Wheeler, where he served for 11 seasons before coming to Pope.
“Coach Mahon’s legacy in coaching will be left with the thousands of players and hundreds of coaches who have encountered his professional, faith-based approach to teaching life lessons,” Pope AD Josh Mathews said.
“I have witnessed a coach who cares for the heart of the athlete significantly more than he cared about the result of a game or match.”
Mahon said his motivational and teaching philosophy came from an adapted rhyme believed to be inspired by the fourth-century Christian priest St. Jerome.
“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best. The key to all that right there is to never let it rest. You’ve got to keep working. Being average is halfway from the top, but also halfway from the bottom. You’ve got to be willing to put in the work. Hopefully, that is what I have passed on to my players and students.”
More about Mahon can be found by clicking here.
Related:
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
