Jeff Segars
Jeff Segars is ready. Perhaps just as important, his boss says he’s ready.
Legendary Vestavia Hills football coach Buddy Anderson, the winningest coach in Alabama high school history, has served dual roles as coach and the school’s athletics director. The Vestavia Hills Board of Education approved Segars, the assistant AD, as Anderson’s replacement as department head on May 20, with Anderson’s blessing.
“Jeff is prepared for this job, and he’s ready,” Anderson said. “He has been an excellent teacher, coach and assistant athletic director, and I’m excited for him to lead our athletic programs. I look forward to continuing as the head football coach and helping Jeff in any way I can.”
“He’s been very important to me. He raised me. Myself, and a bunch of other men would not be who we are without men such as Buddy Anderson,” Segars said.
Superintendent Sheila Phillips said Anderson approached her last fall to discuss the athletic director role.
“We hope to focus on athletics in a much more targeted way than we have before,” said Phillips. “We feel that he is more than qualified to transition into this role.”
The 47-year-old Segars is a 1986 VHHS graduate and has just completed his 22nd year in the system. He’s been assistant football coach and assistant wrestling coach as well, and he plans, for the immediate future anyway, to continue in those two roles.
“It’ll be a year-to-year thing,” he said. “We’re going to see how this goes and if I’m able to do both and make sure I’m able give this job and the other sports the attention they deserve, and I think I can.”
Don’t expect a drastic change in the approach to sports at Vestavia Hills, an approach sometimes called the “Vestavia Way” of doing things.
“Being raised by Coach Anderson, I think my philosophy very much mirrors his philosophy,” said Segars. “We don’t want to be a ‘mini-college.’ We don’t look at high school athletics as it’s supposed to be college athletics. This is supposed to be part of the educational process. When kids leave here, they’ve learned things from us just like they do in the classroom: about the importance of teamwork, about the importance of self-discipline, about the importance of putting the team’s needs in front of their own selfish desires.
“And that’s what our goal is. Wins and losses are going to come. We can only coach the ones who show up. We can’t go and recruit. But what we can do is coach them hard and have great expectations for them, and when they leave here they can look back and say, ‘I had a great experience.’”
Segars said a lot of that has to do with the “Vestavia Way.”
“I think that is unbelievably true,” he said. “From when they start in our middle school programs to the day they walk out of here, the ideas of discipline and hard work are drilled into them every day. We’re going to keep things simple. We’re going to make sure our kids go out there and play hard and have a great experience. Hard work and discipline. Those are lessons they can take with them for the rest of their life. Twenty years from now, no one’s going to care about what kind of layup you could shoot or if you shoot a double-leg takedown or throw a 50-yard pass.
“What’s your character? Do you work hard? Can I count on you? Those are the things we try to instill in our young people.”
He said the athletic department is in great shape. His first priority is to make the department more technologically advanced. Segars wants to shift all the paperwork to computer.
“My main job, as I see it, is to take as much of the administrative work off our coaches as I can so they can get back to the job of coaching. In this day and age, it’s tons of paperwork. If I can make it more friendly on our coaches so they can focus on our student-athletes and make their job easier, I feel like I’m going to be a success. ”
Katie Turpen contributed to this report.
