The opportunity to coach football at New Brockton fell right into place and at the right time for Justin Jones.

The Coffee County Board of Education approved the former Florala coach’s hire at Friday’s meeting.

Jones, who was raised in Coffee County, got his first job as an assistant coach at NBHS.

Coming back to coach the Gamecocks will be sort of like a homecoming, Jones said.

“There’ll be some familiar faces that are there that’ll always make it a little bit easier (to get acclimated),” he said.

Last season, Jones worked as the quarterbacks coach at Enterprise. EHS finished its 2013 season in the second round of the Class 6A state playoffs.

While at FHS, Jones compiled a 8-12 record during the 2011 and 2012 seasons. During his first season as the Wildcats’ coach, Jones went 2-8. He bounced back in 2012 by going 6-4.

Jones said everybody at Florala was great to him and added that the move was strictly for his family.

“When we moved back home — Coffee County was where I was raised,” he said. “We moved back here and there was something about being here. The opportunity (to coach at NBHS) came up while we were here. We wanted to look at something like that.

“New Brockton is about as close as it gets to where we’re located right now,” he said. “It just kind of fell into place.”

Jones said he’s “humbled” to have been given this opportunity to coach at NBHS again.

“I’m sure there were a lot of more highly qualified coaches that probably applied for the job,” he said. “I’m humbled first of all, but at the same time, I’m very excited about getting started.”

Jones will be meeting his new football team for the first time today. Workouts will be held in March and April, with spring training kicking off in May.

“We’re going to get to work as soon possible,” he said.

In February of 2012, Jones’ son, Kaleb — then a 14 month old — was diagnosed with Wilms’ tumor.

Now, almost two years later, Jones said Kaleb’s doing real “well.”

“We’re really doing good,” he said. “The baby is doing good. Everything seems to be going as planned, as far as his treatment and things like that go.

“As far as the baby and the rest of the family, everybody is doing well,” he said.