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Coaches' reunion forced to wait

The classification switch by Jefferson has postponed the Cornelius Bobo-Clarence Higdon coaching matchup.

By FRANK PASTOR

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 23, 2001

TAMPA -- Cornelius Bobo will have to wait at least another year to show Clarence Higdon what he learned from him.

Since last year, Bobo, Plant City's first-year coach and a former Blake assistant, had looked forward to returning to Blake to make his head coaching debut against his mentor.

But the reunion was shelved because of the schedule changes that accompanied Jefferson's move from Class 2A to 4A.

Plant City will open the season with a preseason classic Friday at Jefferson. Blake will host Brandon.

"We just kind of wanted to welcome (Bobo) back at his new position," Higdon said. "Him being up under me and everything, we had looked at it as being something nice. But there's nothing we can do about it."

Higdon was Bobo's physical education teacher at Eisenhower Junior High. The two reconnected when Bobo completed college, and Higdon asked Bobo to be his defensive coordinator at Blake.

Bobo said Higdon began preparing him for a head coaching job immediately.

"He kind of gave me free will to do what I wanted to do," Bobo said. "I can't express in words how happy I was to have that opportunity."

After three years at Blake, Bobo replaced Todd Long at Plant City. Shortly afterward, he and Higdon began planning the preseason classic.

"It's something that we looked forward to since the day I got the job," Bobo said. "Kind of like the mentor and the protege situation."

Higdon said Brandon coach Ernest Hayes approached him last year about playing in the classic, but Blake already had scheduled Plant City. Many of the Blake and Brandon players know each other.

"I guess it ended up those kids get to go up against one another," Higdon said.

Bobo said he is using the situation as an example to prepare his team for the adversity it will face on the field this season.

"You don't have a lot of say in situations that happen to you in life, but you've got to deal with it," he said. "It's going to be interesting to see how we're going to handle it."

Plant City edged Brandon 7-6 in the spring jamboree, so it made little difference to Jefferson coach Mike Simmonds which team the Dragons played. But Simmonds said his team will benefit from Plant City's athleticism.

"We want to play somebody like them that has the athletes and the strength of schedule (Plant City) does," Simmonds said. "That gives us a pretty good gauge of where we're at."

Higdon, Bobo and Simmonds said they hope to avoid injuries, eliminate mistakes and prepare their teams for the season.

They also expect the classics to help finalize their depth charts.

For Blake, the biggest battles are at wide receiver and defensive backfield. At Plant City, senior William Brown and junior Joslin Shaw are "1A and 1B," at running back, Bobo said.

Jefferson is trying to fill holes on the offensive line and in the secondary.

"If anybody thinks they have a job at this point, they need to look hard in the mirror and re-think that, because each and every day somebody could move in front of them on the depth chart," Simmonds said.

Higdon said he would like to get Plant City on next year's schedule.

"We'll see what happens," he said. "They're pretty good down that way. We wanted to kind of catch them before they got real good."

Bobo isn't making any promises.

"We're going to wait and see if they make the playoffs this year," he joked. "If they do, we're taking them off our schedule and we're putting on Jefferson."

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