Palm Beach County football tries to turn the tide
When T.J. Jackson was named the head coach at Atlantic after the 2012 season, Palm Beach County was known around the state as one of the premier areas for high school football.
“When I first started, everyone was chasing Doug Socha [at American Heritage-Delray] and Jack Daniels up at Dwyer,” Jackson said. “There was a lot of talent in Palm Beach County, a lot of kids that were eager to try to get better and try to go to college. ... We went against a lot of guys like Johnnie Dixon and Devin Singletary. It was just a blessing for those kids to be able to play against and compete against [players like that] and better their skills.”
From 2000-2012, seven Palm Beach County programs won a combined 18 state football championships. Another six teams earned trips to the championship game and lost.
Since then, Dwyer’s 2013 state championship remains the lone official Palm Beach state title (Pahokee vacated the 2016 championship), and only five other teams have made it to the title game. Among larger public schools, Atlantic is the only team to make to a title game since Dwyer’s 2013 title run.
“We were in a heyday,” said Socha, who coached at American Heritage-Delray and Oxbridge Academy. “I was offered a good opportunity to be a part of it from 2006 to, really, 2014. ... Since 2013, no one’s really made a splash. It’s disappointing. It’s hard to sustain.”
Traditional powerhouses have struggled lately. Last year, in coach McKinley Rolle’s first season at Dwyer, the Panthers missed the playoffs for only the second time since 1999. American Heritage-Delray has not played for a state championship game since making it to the title game seven times in from 2002 to 2015.
In the Muck, which is known around the country for producing talented football players and title contenders, Glades Central missed the postseason last year after having to forfeit four games. The once perennial title contender has gone 8-7 in the playoffs since 2010 and hasn’t made it to a title game since that year.
Pahokee finished last season 6-6, but the Blue Devils did make a deep playoff run and came close to upsetting Madison County in the state semifinals. However, Pahokee had to vacate its one title in the last decade. Since winning the 2010 state championship, Glades Day has gone 7-6 in the postseason and not made it back to the title game.
“Growing up, it was Glades and Pahokee that had the talent,” Jackson said. “I don’t know if a lot of those kids are playing Pop Warner in the Glades and Pahokee area. What I do see is that a lot of those kids from the Glades and Pahokee area are now moving to the Royal Palm area, to the West Palm Beach area.”
The declining level of football is not just reflected in the lack of state titles over the last few years, but also in recruiting rankings.
From 2015-19, Palm Beach County had 22 players in 247Sports’ top 100 players in Florida for an average of between four and five players per year. In 2020, there were two Palm Beach players in the top 100. There are none currently in the top 100 for 2021 and three for 2022.
Several talented players have left Palm Beach County to play elsewhere, especially across the county line in Broward County. This year, those players include Tyler Gaskin, who transferred from American Heritage-Delray to Deerfield Beach, and Super 11 pick Jaydon Hood, who transferred from Cardinal Newman to St. Thomas Aquinas.
“My reason for going down south was for the competition,” said Hood, who grew up in Royal Palm Beach. “I feel like ... that competition isn’t the same as it used to be when, coming into high school, there was Akeem Dent, E.J. [Jackson] and I was trying to play them. ... Then they left, and it’s kind of like when they left, Palm Beach County went down.”
Although Palm Beach County football may seem down now, there are still talented players in the area and a new group of coaches, including Rolle at Dwyer, D.J. Boldin at Pahokee, and Brian Sheridan at American Heritage-Delray, who are hoping to join Jackson as one of the few local coaches who’ve reached the state championship. Atlantic — with three Super 11 selections in Jahbari Hill, Marquis Lymon and Jeremiah McClendon — American Heritage-Delray, Benjamin and Pahokee are some of the teams who could make noise this season.
“I would say you better provide an environment that’s very intriguing to kids who love football: exciting on offense, a very committed offseason program, college recruiting is a big piece of it, academic support is a piece of it,” Socha said. “But you better have a brand to sell to these kids because kids are shopping. They want to go be part of something that’s different or a little bit special.”
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