Meet the new coaches
- Updated: May 16, 2025
Brown to lead Weaver boys’ wrestling, Welch to lead Ohatchee baseball and Mize to lead Jacksonville soccer among a spate of hirings. Wellborn’s Vinson retiring.
New head coaches in Calhoun County system
Varsity head coaches hired by the Calhoun County Board of Education for the 2025-26 school year:
—Clint Smith, head football coach, White Plains
—Jameson Edwards, head baseball coach, White Plains
—Blake Jennings, head football coach, Ohatchee
—Jake Welch, head baseball coach, Ohatchee
—Dustin Screws, (volunteer) head wrestling coach, Ohatchee (pending Background check and AHSAA credentials)
—Marcus Herbert, head boys basketball coach, Pleasant Valley
—Chris Youngman, head cross country coach, Pleasant Valley
—Shannon Felder, head football coach, Saks
—David Floyd, head softball coach, Saks
—Michelle Martin, head volleyball coach, Saks
—Justin Brown, head boys wrestling coach, Weaver
ELSEWHERE
—Jeremy Sullivan, head football coach, Jacksonville
—Taylor Hayes, head baseball coach, Jacksonville
—Chelsea Mize, head boys’ and girls’ soccer coach, Jacksonville
—Anna Goodwin, head cross country coach, Jacksonville
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
Brenda Vinson didn’t choose coaching as a career path, but it chose her.
The long-time Wellborn coach, a Calhoun County coach of the year in three sports, has chosen to retire after 27 years.
Vinson is retiring from education after 24 years as a varsity head coach … all at Welllborn. Her current capacities were as head coach in softball and volleyball, but she also coached Wellborn”s girls’ basketball team.
At one time or another, she was county coach of the year in all three sports.
Her retirement comes after her on-going battles with rheumatoid arthritis worsened during the 2025 season.
“I feel like, some days, I could sit here and do this until the Lord took me out,” Vinson said. “I’m battling RA, which I’ve been doing fairly well with it. This season, in softball, the inflammation has been pretty strong.
“The only way I can figure out for me to attack that is for me to take some stress off and kind of change my pattern.”
Vinson, an Alexandria grad who started her professional life as a social worker, has 28 years in the Alabama Retirement System. She began volunteering as a coach at Wellborn in 1998, and the coaching and teaching drew her in. She became the junior-high volleyball coach and an assistant in softball in 1999 and junior-high basketball coach in 2000.
She split time as the softball head coach in 2001 while completing her certifications then became the full-time head coach in 2002. She was varsity softball coach from 2002-05 and 2010-25, volleyball from 2012-25 and basketball from 2010-12.
She also coached track in 2009.
She coached softball teams to the state tournament in 2001 and 2013. The volleyball team reached state in 2023. She coached basketball to the county finals and semifinals in 2010 and 2011, respective.
At different times, she coached volleyball, basketball and softball in the same school year.
She doesn’t know her all-time records, she said. She stopped tracking such things after her downtime in softball.
Since informing her administrators and players of her decision to retire, she’s spent time piecing her career together by looking through yearbooks.
“Education is not that path that I chose,” she said. “I feel now that it was the path that God had for me. I didn’t just end up here just by circumstance.
“Things happened in the right order, at the right times, and here I am 27 years later. We’ve had a lot of competitive teams, and it’s been fun.”
Hirings
JUSTIN BROWN: Justin Brown, a 13-year under assistant in wrestling under Andy Fulmer at Weaver, will succeed Fulmer as the varsity boys’ coach. Brown takes over a program that won three consecutive Class 1A-4A state titles from 2022-24 and wrapped runner-up finishes around them.
The Bearcats also won the 1A-4A state duals title in 2024.
Including the program’s glory years under hall-of-game coach Gene Taylor, Weaver has 12 traditional state titles in boys’ wrestling and one state duals title.
“I’ve very thankful for the opportunity to take over the program,” Brown said. “Fulmer and myself have coached together for the past 13 seasons, and I learned a lot over those years as his assistant.
“Thankful that we were able to continue the success of Coach Taylor and thankful to be able to learn under Coach Fulmer. We have some very big shoes to fill in taking over after the legendary Coach Taylor and coach Fulmer. Both guys mean a lot to me, and it’s an honor and privilege to be able to take over this program following in Coach Fulmer’s footsteps.”
Brown took over as Weaver’s girls wrestling head coach in 2025 and led the Bearcats to a 1A-5A state title, the first ever sanctioned by the AHSAA. He selected as the East Alabama Sports Today All-Calhoun County coach of the year for girls’ wrestling.
Weaver will hire a new girls’ wrestling coach, Brown said.
JAKE WELCH: There are now two Welch brothers coaching baseball in Calhoun County, one on the east side of 431 and one on the west.
Jake Welch, younger brother to Alexandria head coach Zac Welch, will take over Ohatchee’s baseball program and serve as defensive coordinator in football under new head coach Blake Jennings. Both Welches and Jennings are Alexandria graduates.
Welch comes to Ohatchee after a stint at Pell City, where he coached tight ends/H-backs in football and assisted in baseball. He served as Pell City’s pitching coach in 2025.
He coached at Alexandria before that, serving as defensive coordinator in football under current head coach Todd Ginn and offensive coordinator under Frank Tucker. Welch was also an assistant in baseball.
“I’m glad to be back in Calhoun County,” he said. “I married a girl from Ohatchee, and I live about a minute and a half from the school, and that’s where my little daughter is in kindergarten at. It’s actually a little closer than Alexandria for me.
“I’m excited to work with them. It’s my job to teach them the game of baseball, and I’ll do that to the best of my abilities.”
Big brother Zac coached Alexandria to the Class 5A state title in 2024, and the two programs will play each other. They scheduled summer play dates, and Ohatchee will be Alexandria’s senior-night opponent next season, and Alexandria will play at Ohatchee in 2027.
“He’s helped me out a lot, just getting started,” Jake Welch said. “I know he’s right there beside me. Any questions I’ve got, I know he’ll help me out. He’s a phone call away.”
CHELSEA MIZE: Chelsea Mize is returning to the sideline in soccer. She’ll coach boys and girls at Jacksonville after taking a break.
She coached Weaver’s girls from 2016-21 and coached the boys for four years. She was also the varsity head volleyball coach from 2019-22.
She helped to coach Weaver to two playoff appearances apiece in boys’ and girls’ soccer, and the boys’ team reached the Calhoun County final in 2021. She was Calhoun County coach of the year and state 1A-5A coach of the year ion 2021.
She left to work at Jacksonville in 2023. Husband Corey Mize is the head girls’ basketball coach and golf coach at Jacksonville.
She resigned from coaching after the 2022 season to spend more time with then-10-month-old daughter Tatum.
“Took a few years off to have some beautiful babies, but my passion has called me back,” she posted to Facebook. “My mind told me for a while I was done, but my heart said, ‘Not just yet, Chels.'”
ALSO NOTABLE: New Jacksonville head football coach Jeremy Sullivan has hired former Southside head coach Ben Stewart to be his offensive coordinator.
Stewart coached Southside in 2024 and was Etowah County coach of the year after guiding the Panthers to a 6-5 finish and Class 6A playoff berth.
He served as Oxford’s offensive coordinator/running backs coach from 2021-23. He was also an assistant at Hoover from 2018-20, Springville 2016-18 and Hillcrest 2014-16.
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