For Todd, a state championship isn’t the measure of a coach: “It’s more about changing people’s lives.”
By Greg Riddle
Kansas wide receivers coach Emmett Jones stopped by South Oak Cliff on Tuesday. He wasn’t just there to recruit.
He was there to support the team he once coached and to soak in the atmosphere after one of the biggest football wins in Dallas ISD history.
“I just wanted to come back home and feel the energy that is floating around throughout the city that these guys created. They have the whole state buzzing,” Jones said. “I know how hard they work. I just want to show them some love, just give them a little motivation.”
South Oak Cliff has reached the fourth round of the playoffs for the first time since 2014 — Jones’ final year as head coach at SOC — after shocking 10-time state champion Aledo 33-28 in a Class 5A Division II Region II semifinal. A win against Lovejoy (12-1) in Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. regional final at the Ford Center at The Star would put South Oak Cliff (12-1) in the state semifinals for the first time since 1970, when it lost to Odessa Permian.
“It’s so tough to win a state championship coming from an inner-city program,” Jones said. “They are inspiring young kids, and this will do wonders for years for this community.”
So has Jason Todd, a masterful motivator and teacher of life lessons who has brought hope to a school district that hasn’t had a team play in a state championship game since 2004.
Todd took over as SOC’s head coach in 2015 after Jones left to become the director of player development at Texas Tech. South Oak Cliff is trying to bring Dallas ISD its first state title since 1958 (Booker T. Washington in the Prairie View Interscholastic League) and is trying to give a 22-high school school district its first UIL state championship since Sunset won it all in 1950 (Carter had to forfeit its 1988 title) — but Todd doesn’t want that to be what he’s remembered for.
“A lot of people try to define a coach by winning a title,” Todd said. “There are a lot of factors that I think are way bigger. It’s more about changing people’s lives and showing people how to use the game of football and sports as a vehicle for life.”
In that regard, Todd wants to be like his grandfather Frederick Todd, who was a longtime principal at South Oak Cliff.
“He believed as long as you were educated, nobody could take that away from you,” Coach Todd said. “Education can take you a long way.”
After playing linebacker at Texas Southern, Todd learned from legendary coach Reginald Samples (now at Duncanville) while serving as a defensive backs coach at Lincoln and as the defensive coordinator at Skyline. They suffered heartbreak together when Lincoln lost 33-27 in double overtime to Kilgore in the 2004 Class 4A Division II state championship game and when Skyline lost 28-24 to Southlake Carroll in a memorable 2011 state semifinal when a fox ran onto the field as Carroll was scoring the winning touchdown in the final minute.
But working with a coach who has more than 300 career wins taught Todd a valuable lesson that has helped him while compiling a record of 67-19 in his seven seasons as a head coach.
“How to work with kids. It’s all about relationships and trust,” Todd said. “Parents trust us with their kids because they know we’re going to be honest and we’re going to treat them just like we treat our own. We have [coaches] that are Dallas home-grown kids. Who better to trust your kids with in the inner city than guys who are from the inner city and went on to become productive coaches and citizens and teachers.”
These players would do anything for Todd. South Oak Cliff held a media availability session Tuesday, but the talk wasn’t just about beating an Aledo team that had won three straight state championships or about the fact that college recruiters from Texas, Florida, Michigan State and Texas A&M have stopped by the school recently.
Players took time out to recognize Todd and the impact he has had on their lives.
“He’s a great coach. He’s a role model to us,” said senior quarterback Kevin Henry-Jennings, a Missouri State pledge who has thrown 33 touchdown passes and only two interceptions. “He’s always pushing us to be there for your family. We’re a big family.”
This year’s team has two area top-100 recruits — cornerback Kyron Chambers (committed to Arizona) and running back Qualon Farrar (committed to North Texas). Other SOC teams may have had more talent from a recruiting standpoint — the 2019 team had five area top-100 players and the 2020 team had four — but this year’s team has something special.
It has been able to overcome adversity, and not just on the football field, where it lost starting running back Kamerion Fields to a torn ACL in the second game of the season.
“I had one player who was coming to school one morning and his mother [had just died]. I had another situation where a kid’s father passed away,” Todd said. “They deal with some real-life situations. Football doesn’t intimidate these kids, because they go home to some real-life things.”
Todd is there for his players when they experience those life-changing moments and need someone to lean on.
“He’s like a parent to us, like one of our guardians,” said senior running back Ke’Undrae Hollywood, who leads SOC in rushing with 972 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Four-star recruit Malik Muhammad left South Oak Cliff last spring and transferred to IMG Academy, a nationally ranked program in Florida. But a defensive back/wide receiver who holds offers from Georgia, Michigan, Alabama and Cincinnati — the top four teams in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings — never played for IMG, deciding to return to SOC for his junior season this fall.
“I felt like I had a bigger dream to accomplish here,” Muhammad said. “I wanted to come back and dominate and lead South Oak Cliff to a state championship. I wanted to do it for Coach Todd and the coaching staff and for the city of Dallas.
“[Coach Todd] is a big part of all of the kids’ lives here, all of the players and even the students that don’t play sports. He has a big impact in Dallas. You can tell everyone loves him.”
And those in Dallas don’t have to worry about Todd looking to leave South Oak Cliff for a college job.
“I hope to continue to win at South Oak Cliff and to serve in Dallas ISD and one day retire and drink lemonade on my porch,” Todd said. “I have zero want-to to go to the college level.”
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