When I think about a high school football coach in a small Mississippi town and what that job should look like if done right, I think about Tucker Peavey and Brookhaven High School.

Peavey, an institution in local coaching, announced his retirement this week.His reason for stepping away is a noble one, he wants to be there on Friday nights when his grandsons Tucker and Tarver suit up at Tioga High, a 150-mile trip west to Central Louisiana.

You don’t want a reflection on his impact to read like an obituary, but it’s hard not to think about the legacy that Peavey is leaving behind.

Brookhaven High School is the largest school in this swath of southwest Mississippi and since Peavey has been in charge, the football program has run with a collegiate level of organization.Under his watch, the Panthers have had one of the strictest offseason workout programs you’ll find.

The coaching staff would run two sessions, with the 6 a.m. slot being the most popular, as players tried to beat the heat early while lifting and running around the track or up the stadium stairs within King Field.

Attendance was mandatory, excused absences were few, and the hours put in by Peavey and his assistant coaches during the offseason were long.If you know him, then you know Tucker Peavey isn’t going to do anything halfway. He believes that the success of a football team comes in planning and preparation. That means hours of film study and mapping out practice, even in the offseason.

That means having assistant coaches aligned with his goals and vision, a group willing to spend untold hours game scheming on how to stop the passing attack at West Jones or the ground game used by Picayune High.

Peavey mentions that coaching fraternity as something he’ll miss the most about this job. His former assistants dot the area and state, many of them leaders in administration now. Brookhaven School District Superintendent Dr. Rod Henderson once coached under Peavey at BHS, as did current Brookhaven Academy head football coach Ryan Ross.

There is a camaraderie among those that spent time working together at BHS. Peavey didn’t just keep his own desk in tip-top shape in the BHS fieldhouse, the assistant coaches were expected to follow that lead too.

He wanted his teams to play a certain way, dress a certain way, and carry themselves in a certain way.

He set high standards, as I wrote about not too long ago while naming him the 2024 Daily Leader All-Area Coach of the Year.

I’ve always tried to be objective when writing about the coaches that I cover for this paper, even the ones that I count as friends, but I hope you can feel the respect I’ve always held for Peavey during my time covering his teams.

The first job I got in teaching and coaching was at Brookhaven High when Peavey was the athletic director and head football coach.

A mentor called me and said that BHS was looking for an assistant basketball coach that could teach English and that I needed to give Tucker Peavey a call.

It was a memorable moment in my life, as the call came while I stood with a sign in my hands that said “Stop” on one side and “Slow” on the other. I was directing traffic as my daddy ran a loader, picking up Hurricane Katrina debris outside of Waveland, Mississippi.

Covered in mosquito netting to protect me from biting gnats, I couldn’t wait to get Coach Peavey on the line and get my application and resume on his desk. I also couldn’t wait to have a job that offered health insurance too.

As a fan of good coaching, I’ve always enjoyed seeing the way Peavey ran his program, something I first experienced while working at BHS.

A couple of years ago, the Panthers went 1-9 in a season where it felt like they never got a single break.

Anyone that watches BHS football closely could see a renewed sense of purpose after that and the sophomores on that team went 11-2 as seniors in 2024 through a combination of hard work and good coaching.

If there is any silver lining in this change, it’s that Peavey’s wife Leah Ann isn’t planning on retiring too. She’s a championship level teacher in the area of Polymer Science, who’s impacted students in the classroom just as her husband has on the football field.

Brookhaven High was really good last year and has almost the entire team coming back after making the final four of 5A football.

That fact might have made it feel like an extra shock when news started to spread on Monday that Peavey was retiring.

After talking to him this week, I realized his motivation for the change is one that I can’t fault him for.

Not too long ago he heard his oldest grandson inviting his uncle to come watch his “Senior Night” at Tioga that’ll be played later this year.

Realizing that he’d be too busy coaching his own team to see that game was a thought he couldn’t shake.

He decided that he didn’t want to miss that game or any more of his grandson’s games.

We are given just once chance to make the most out of our lives and we’re never given a clock by God that lets us know when our time will be up.

That’s a reality we all have to face and it shouldn’t make us fatalistic, but it should also drive us towards making the most out of the time we have with the people we love.

As someone who’d give anything for my own kids to know the grandparent that’s missing from their lives, his decision to put family first only grows my already great respect for Coach Tucker Peavey.

Cliff Furr writes about sports for The Daily Leader.