Longtime Brookhaven High head football coach Tucker Peavey announced his retirement this week after a combined total of 16 years leading the Panthers over two different stints at the school.

Peavey called in his current players on Monday to tell them of his intentions. As word began to spread throughout the community, the Brookhaven School District posted a message from Peavey on Thursday acknowledging his retirement via social media.

“My grandsons are going to be a junior and a senior next year and they play high school football in Central Louisiana,” said Peavey when asked about the reasoning behind his decision. “I’ve missed a lot while coaching my own teams over the years and I just knew this was a time with my family that I didn’t want to miss.”

A 1980 graduate of Brookhaven High, Peavey was hired to lead the Panthers in 2002. He’d been selected earlier that year to be the head coach at Pearl River Community College in Poplarville. His replacement at Pearl River, Tim Hatten, subsequently led the Wildcats to the 2004 NJCAA National Championship.

His background was in the college game, but when his alma mater came open, Peavey left PRCC to come home.

It marked the first and only high school head coaching job that he’d ever take. He began his career in the college game as a graduate assistant at LSU and then was an offensive line coach at UL-Monroe and UL-Lafayette. Later in his career, he coached the line at Southern Miss and was then head coach at Southwest Mississippi Community College before coming back home to Ole Brook again in 2018.

“You just can make such a deeper connection when you are coaching a guy through four years of high school,” said Peavey. “The relationships with the coaches on the staff and the players on the team, that’s what I’m going to miss the most about this job. I enjoyed my time in college, but there is something special about being a head coach at a high school, especially this one.”

His first BHS team finished 7-5 and made it to the third round of the 2002 4A playoffs after finishing third in District 6-4A.

In the second round the Panthers beat South Pike 2-0 on a cold night in front of a King Field jam packed with fans. South Pike had beaten BHS 28-14 in the regular season just a month prior.

That would be a good preview for what was soon to come at BHS, both in the crowd size, and the ability to bounce back in the postseason against a familiar foe, which was a trademark of a Peavey coached team.

The 2003 team went 8-2 in the regular season and won the region. They were beaten 25-20 at home in the second round by a Wayne County squad that won the state title game and finished 14-1.

The lines of fans parking cars down past First Baptist Church and back up toward Star Drive In on East Monticello Street to then make a long walk to King Field on a Friday night came to a crescendo in 2004.

Led by Jimmy Johns, Jessie Bowman, Ronnie McNulty, Bud Chatman and a whole band of unforgettable talent and toughness, Brookhaven High finished 14-1 and won the MHSAA 4A State Championship on a night where it felt like the entirety of the town cheered inside Veterans Memorial Stadium for a team that had been tabbed as favorites in the preseason.

Many of those who were there in person at the third-round matchup on King Field against Wayne County, a 27-21 win in which Chatman made “The Catch,” as the best high school football game they’d ever seen.

BHS was still a perennial contender over the next six years, as the program had just one sub .500 season during the time after the title.

The 2010 team, Peavey’s last before he took a year off coaching, captured some of that magic with a run to the 4A state championship game.

During the regular season, that team lost in back-to-back weeks to region rivals from West Jones (31-0) and Wayne County (27-20). They squeaked into the postseason behind those teams and Picayune as the no.4 seed out of Region 3-5A.

The Panthers went to Long Beach and returned with a 23-21 win and in the second round, they got revenge with a 21-14 win over Wayne County.

Then the Panthers produced another trademark win in Peavey’s career as head coach, a 27-26 5A South State championship game triumph over a previously unbeaten West Jones team.

West Point beat BHS 21-3 in the championship, but that sting didn’t hurt too badly, seeing how the Panthers had bounced back to 9-4 and the title game after going 5-6 the year before.

With his son Nick Peavey, a senior tight end on that 2010 team, pursuing college football, Peavey stayed on as Athletic Director, but took a job within the school district in maintenance.

That lasted from February until December. A knee injury eventually ended football for Nick Peavey and his dad was hired to coach the offensive line at Southern Miss for Ellis Johnson.

When Johnson was dismissed following one season in Hattiesburg, Peavey accepted the head coach position at Southwest Mississippi CC.

He held that job for five seasons before coming back to Brookhaven High in 2018 after former coach Tommy Clopton made the move into administration.

The best team Peavey’s had during this second go-round at BHS, which lasted seven seasons, was his final one, a group that went 11-2 and lost in the final moments of the 2024 MHSAA 5A semifinals.

The Panthers return nearly the entire roster and are expected to again be 5A contenders next season.

“My decision couldn’t be about the team and what we’ve got coming back or anything like that,” said Peavey. “It has to be about my family and what’s best for right now. I’m only going to get this one chance to see my grandsons play high school football. That gives me peace about making this decision.”