It’s evident Dave Jefferies is a patient man.
In many ways he has to be as the head football coach of Queen Creek’s Ben Franklin High School. The Chargers, in only their third season as a member of the AIA, are building a program and doing it the right way under Jefferies who arrived on campus earlier this year after a widely successful 30-7 run in the same position at Thatcher High School.
As expected, there have been some bumps in the road for the charter school whose roster includes just eight seniors, one is his son Chad, and just started strength work after the on-campus weight room was completed last summer.
“They’re responding really well to the expectations our coaching staff has,” Jefferies told Sports360AZ.com. “My coaches have done a great job of supporting the things I’m trying to instill.”
At the top of Jefferies’ list is preaching character and morale both on and off the field.
“We have very high expectations for student behavior,” he said. “Academic performance a lot of times lends itself to giving great effort on the athletic field.”
BFHS is 2-4, 0-3 in the region entering Friday’s home game against Veritas Prep but Jefferies has seen progress with his team and the entire program since the season started back up in August. Senior playmaker Elijzah Jackson leads the Chargers with four receiving touchdowns, while junior middle linebacker Jayden Rollins has paced the defense with 34 tackles, including six for loss.
“Our kids are doing a great job,” he explained. “Our goal is to compete in every game we play. I don’t want to judge us by our win-loss record…we’re going to judge ourselves by our attitude and our effort.”
