Oakdale football and coach J.R. Voyles perseveres past losses on field and off

Print

By JESSE SMITHEY

If there’s one thing to glean from this surreal 2020 high school football season, it’s that there is a strong measure of resiliency in Oakdale.

In its community.

In its players.

And certainly in its head football coach.

They just keep coming back.

The program saw some of its darkest days during the 2017-19 seasons, and then coach J.R. Voyles lost his mother and his sister, respectively, this May and August.

But here are the Eagles with a 4-2 record and a steadfast Voyles at the helm heading into Friday’s region contest with Sunbright.

It all stems from the show-up-and-work-no-matter-the-situation mentality of its coach.

“Kids see that stuff. They know what’s going on with you, and they see how you handle things,” said Voyles of his life’s adverse moments in 2020.

“To show them and be the example they needed, I had to take the next step. They gave me that courage and that support to take the next step.”

THE NUMBERS GAME

Voyles needed courage late in the 2018 season to hit the ejection button from the final three games of Oakdale’s season. It wasn’t quitting. He was stepping up to protect his players.

Oakdale made Class 1A state playoff appearances and went 19-14 from 2014-2016. But the program cycled down in 2017. The Eagles went 2-8 that year. And with three games left in the 2018 season, they stood 1-6 — and with just 14 players on the active roster.

Voyles began the season with only 20. But by October, his roster had been ravaged by injury. And three of his remaining 14 were playing hurt.

Oakdale football is part of Voyles’ family. He had to protect it, so he called off games against Oliver Springs, Harriman and Greenback, all of which were playoff caliber teams that season.

He recalled a moment earlier in the 2018 season when he had to substitute in a 5-foot-4, 100-something-pound reserve to fill a spot on the offensive line for one play because he had no one else to select.

He wasn’t going to put his players in harm’s way again.

“It was hard to cancel, but at the same time it wasn’t — from the standpoint of where we were at with numbers. We had gotten down to 14 kids that season, and we were looking at playing three really good teams. It wasn’t avoiding them; it was knowing the gauntlet that we were going to have to go against with Oliver Springs, Harriman and Greenback. They were all three good and playoff-level teams,” recalled Voyles this week.

“And out of my 14, two or three of them weren’t 100 percent. That would be sending kids to the slaughter. I couldn’t lay my head down at night and sleep comfortably knowing that I wasn’t doing everything I could to protect the kids. Job No. 1 for me is to take care of the kids and do right by them. The kids I had wanted to go. That’s what tore at you harder than anything. The kids wanted to play but it wasn’t conducive to success for them. And I’m not talking wins and losses. I’m talking survival at that point.”

Oakdale managed to play a full 10-game schedule in 2019 but won just one game. So following one of the most successful stretches in Oakdale history, the Eagles went 4-26 from 2017-19.

Then, the Covid-19 pandemic hit this spring.

BLESSINGS AND TRAGEDY

Time away from the field that Covid-19 quarantine caused proved to be just what Voyles needed, personally.

His mother, Jacqueline, was struggling with her health and was going back and forth between the hospital and full-time nursing home care. The time the pandemic provided allowed him to be more available to help in his mother’s situation when he was allowed.

But after months of battling, Jacqueline Voyles passed away on May 19.

J.R. Voyles lost his biggest fan.

“When she passed away in May, it was tough. She was at every single practice when I was growing up. She was at every single game. She took me everywhere,” he said. “She drove me Florida to play baseball. She drove me to Georgia to play baseball. We’ve been to North Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi. We’ve been everywhere playing ball.

“My mom was always there. When I went to play baseball in college, the first game, I come up to bat and I hear my mom. And I’m thinking, ‘It’s just like it’s always been.’ And the first weekend away, when we go out of town to play, I come up to bat and I don’t hear her. It hit me. ‘Man, Mom ain’t here.’ Now, it’s been four months. It’s still tough.”

And it’s been tough not hearing Jacqueline Voyle’s voice on Friday nights, and J.R. Voyles admits he still fights the old habit of picking up the phone to call his mother.

His sister’s voice is gone, as well. Roughly three months after Voyle’s mom died, his sister Loni passed.

The second blow was just as devastating and gut-wrenching as the first. Maybe even more since it was unexpected.

“When my mom had gotten sick, she and I reconnected,” J.R. Voyles said of his sister. “We got to spend a lot of really good time together. Me and her had been working on a house, remodeling a house she was moving into. Man, that one was tough, because it felt like the rug got pulled out from under us.”

Loni was J.R. Voyles’ lone sibling.

But in his losses, he rediscovered what he already knew. But now, more profoundly, he witnessed first hand that family can oftentimes be more than just bloodlines.

Voyles’ wife, undoubtedly, helped hold him and his family together. “I have a wife who’s laying treasures in heaven unbeknownst to people,” he said. But those in and around Oakdale provided meals, calls, texts, prayers and hugs.

Former players and current players alike let Voyles know what he meant to them, and they wanted to lift him up.

“But being around these guys helped,” Voyles said of the football program. “They’re part of my family. I treat these guys as my own kids. I’m tough on them, but I love them, too. They know that and understand that. Whenever we got the phone call about my sister in August, my sister passing away, I was actually at football practice. My coaches and my guys around me, they picked up the slack for me.

“In 11 years as a head coach, I’d never missed a practice. I had to leave early that day. My dad was in a bad place, and I needed to be with him. Through that whole deal and having to be the one to oversee that — my mom and my sister both — and organize all the arrangements and make sure everybody else was taken care of, it was a lot. Without having my coaches and my guys around me and having all the players to be there to have an outlet, it would have been really hard.”

WINNING AGAIN

If enduring the hard times makes the good times more appreciated, then Oakdale and Voyles must now be as grateful as Powerball winners.

And while the school enrollment at Oakdale hasn’t necessarily increased all that much — it has 138 kids — participation and interest in the football program have spiked upward.

Oakdale has 27 players on its roster this fall, a number that is ideal according to Voyles.

“I’d love to have 50. But 27 or 28 kids is the perfect number for us,” he said. “We can roll with that.”

And Oakdale has it rolling again.

The Eagles opened the season with a 41-16 win over Pickett County and followed with an 18-8 win over Jellico. A 30-22 win at Wartburg in Week 4 let the Oakdale fanbase know that the program had stepped out of the shadows.

“There’s some excitement (in town) and winning helps,” said Voyles. “Even the kids who aren’t playing, there’s more chatter in the hallways.

“You’re out in the community and at the gas station and someone says, ‘Hey, Coach. Seen your score Friday.’ That kind of stuff. You’re getting more of that.”

So just how’d Voyles and Oakdale do it?

The buy-in factor can’t be underestimated, Voyles said. The kids were so desperate for football coming out of the quarantine that they would have showed up in droves if “we were just out there painting walls,” he joked.

But looking deeper, the freshmen and sophomores on the roster weren’t used to losing coming into high school. So a winning expectation has trickled into the locker room, and a young cast of skill players from 2019 has matured.

Sophomore running back Timmy Holder ran for roughly 150 yards and two touchdowns last week while also making 12 tackles, two sacks and two interceptions. His do-it-all mentality and competitive fire ignites Oakdale.

“He’s having a really good season. Timmy Holder is one of the most competitive players I’ve ever coached,” Voyles said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. When I had him in Algebra I, he wanted to be the first kid done with his test. Whenever he’s running a sprint, he wants to be the first guy done. He wants to win and be successful in everything he does. You don’t coach that. But you really enjoy it when you find it.”

Eloy Vera, a junior, developed his physique in the offseason and has contributed in a major way. And it’s a frame that, according to Voyles, has “a lot of athletic ability and a lot of speed.”

“Eloy Vera is a skill kid that has taken snaps at quarterback, running back, slot receiver, outside receiver. He’s lined up at tight end. He’s played defensive end, linebacker, safety and corner. He’s punted, and he’s held on extra points,” said Voyles.

“And I think he might have helped sell popcorn at halftime.”

Lineman like Alex Osborne, Riley Underwood and Dallas Smith have had a workman-like approach all season and have done well allowing senior quarterback Tyler Boyer time to operate.

It’s Boyer’s first year playing quarterback. And while there have been some growing pains, Voyles is seeing progress there.

Still, Oakdale has made only five playoff appearances in its program history and has never won a postseason game.

And just because the Eagles are 4-2 and enjoying a nice turnaround doesn’t mean they’re playoff-bound just yet.

Sitting at 0-2 in Region 2-1A play, Oakdale needs to get into the top four of its region standings by regular season’s end to earn a berth. So getting a pair wins in its final four games against Sunbright, Oliver Springs, Harriman and Greenback will be paramount if the Eagles are to advance.

What a final chapter that would be in a trying 2020 for Voyles.

“It’s a year that I’m not going to mind turning to a new one, from the standpoint of some of the stuff I’ve had to deal with — the crazy pandemic and my mom and sister passing away,” said Voyles.

“But I’m enjoying the heck out of the football team right now.”