PHIL CAMPBELL - Coaches are reluctant by nature to compare players past and present. They—quite understandably—don’t want to step on anybody’s toes.
Especially when the players in question happen to be the coach’s own daughters.
“No way,” said Doug Jackson, now in his fifth year as head softball coach at Phil Campbell High School. “I’m not doing that.”
Jackson, leaning against a bookcase in the PCHS library on Friday morning, smiled as he politely declined to even entertain the question: Who’s the better player—his youngest daughter, Leeah, a senior who just moments earlier had signed a letter of intent to play at Snead State Community College; or his oldest daughter, Lindsey, a 2012 graduate of Phil Campbell who went on to play two seasons of college softball at Calhoun?
Fortunately, Leeah was more than willing to take her father off the hook.
“Oh, that’s easy,” she said, trying her best to keep a straight face. “I am.”
All kidding aside, it’s practically impossible to compare Lindsey, who made her living in the circle as a dominant pitcher, with Leeah, a slick fielder with speed whom Snead State coach Tracy Grindrod calls “a true second baseman.” This much, however, is certain—Leeah wanted to follow in her older sister’s footsteps.
“I’ve wanted to play softball in college probably since I was seven years old,” said Leeah, who also drew interest from Covenant College in Chattanooga, Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, Wallace-Hanceville and even the University of South Carolina. “My sister played, and I wanted to be like her.”
Well, except for the whole pitching thing. Leeah took pitching lessons alongside Lindsey as a youngster and briefly spent some time in the circle as a seven-year-old playing travel ball for the North Alabama Kraze, but her speed and athleticism had her ticketed for the middle infield. Second base was a natural fit for her hard-nosed style.
“I like to get dirty,” said Jackson, who has been playing varsity softball at Phil Campbell since the end of her seventh-grade year. “I don’t like those routine groundballs that are hit right at me. I like the ones where I have to move one way or the other and dive for it. And the good thing about playing second base is, you can get dirty and still have time to get up and make a throw.”
Jackson believes her glove to be her greatest asset, but she’s no slouch at the plate—or, for that matter, on the bases. As a junior in 2017, she put together her best offensive season to date, setting new varsity career-highs with a .521 batting average, eight home runs, 46 RBIs and 32 stolen bases. She helped lead the Lady Bobcats to their first regional appearance in 10 years, winning the team’s Most Valuable Player Award and earning All-County and All-Area honors as well.
Individual accolades aside, Jackson said her greatest thrill at Phil Campbell thus far was playing in Huntsville this past May in the Class 2A North Regional Tournament.
“That was our goal,” said Jackson, who homered and drove in four runs in an 8-3 win over Sulligent at the Area 14 tournament that punched the Lady Bobcats’ regional ticket. “We had been working for that for a long time.”
Jackson can certainly appreciate the satisfaction that comes from achieving a longstanding goal. She saw how hard her older sister worked and trained, and she knew there would be no short cuts to the collegiate level.
“It’s taken a lot of practice,” Leeah said, “and a lot of hard work.”
Grindrod first watched Jackson play with the Kraze as an 11-year-old, and Snead State offered her a scholarship in August of 2015, just a few months after Jackson had batted .505 with 44 RBIs and 26 stolen bases as a freshman at PCHS. She verbally committed to Snead that December, then went on to bat .417 with two homers, 32 RBIs and 29 steals for the Lady Bobcats as a sophomore.
Jackson had no qualms about committing to Snead State so early in her high school career. The invite to go work out for South Carolina was enticing; the eight-to-nine-hour drive, not so much. Two hours to Boaz was plenty. And, besides, Grindrod had worked hard to cultivate a relationship with the Jacksons, an effort that didn’t escape Leeah’s notice.
“He really stayed in contact with me and kept up with me,” she said of Grindrod, who led Snead State to the NJCAA National Tournament in Utah this past spring. “He’s a good role model, too. He believes in putting God first, and that’s something I can look up to.”
Jackson looks forward to helping Snead State make another postseason run in the spring of 2019, but first there’s the matter of her senior season at Phil Campbell. A .495 career hitter with 12 home runs, 174 RBIs and 110 stolen bases, she already has some individual and team goals in mind for her final year in the black and gold.
“I’d love to help us get back to the regional again and this time go to state,” said Jackson, who went 4-for-8 with two walks, two runs and two RBIs in her three-game regional debut last season. “I want to keep improving as a hitter, too. I know the pitching at the college level is going to be tough.”
Surrounded by family, friends, neighbors, teammates and classmates in the PCHS library at last Friday’s ceremony, Jackson sounded eager to get started on her career as a college softball player.
“I’m so excited. It’s been my dream forever,” said Jackson, who plans to major in business and hopes to continue her playing career at a four-year school after she leaves Snead State. “I’ve got so many people to thank, starting with my mom [Nina], my sister and my dad. I want to thank my grandparents, too, and the rest of my family. And also all my coaches, Coach Witt [Carl, who coaches the North Alabama Kraze], Tracy Pace [an assistant at Phil Campbell], my dad and of course Coach Grindrod.”
