Enterprise football lands former college assistant

New Enterprise High School football coach Ben Blackmon has already started to put together his new staff as the school hired John Turner on Jan. 25 to serve as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator.

Turner brings a plethora of high school and college coaching experience to the Wildcats and he previously served as offensive coordinator under Blackmon at Spanish Fort, winning a state championship alongside Blackmon.

Turner is a Fort Mead, Fla., native and played on the offensive line at Fort Meade High School for his father before playing collegiately at Marion Military Institute and then Jacksonville State University. After graduating, he served as a graduate assistant at Jacksonville State in 1988 and then headed to the Wiregrass where he served as an assistant coach at Daleville High from 1989 until 1993 and then at the old Dothan High School from 1994 until 1996. He joined the staff at UMS-Wright in 1999. He was on the Daleville staff when the team won it’s 1992 State Championship.

Turner returned to the college game to serve as a graduate assistant at Auburn from 1997 until 1998, where he also earned his master’s degree in education. He then served as a graduate assistant at Clemson in 2001 before becoming offensive line coach at Western Carolina for one season in 2002. He then served in that same role at Tennessee-Chattanooga. After one season, he also was promoted to assistant head coach at UTC. He remained at UTC until 2007.

When former Alabama wide receiver Joey Jones launched the football program at the University of South Alabama in 2008, Jones tapped Turner to serve as offensive line and tight ends coach at USA. He served in that role at USA until 2015 when he joined Blackmon’s staff at Spanish Fort as offensive line coach and offensive coordinator.

He joined the UMS-Wright staff in 2018 as a receivers and tight ends coach until 2020 when he joined the staff at Bayside Academy in Daphne.