Over the past three seasons, he’s guided teams to two district titles, reached the state semifinals once and the regional finals on two other occassions.

Over that same time span, his 28-9 record is best among all area coaches.

Freeport's Jim Anderson doing what he does best: Coaching them up.

And no, his name isn’t John Hicks (good guess, though), it’s Jim Anderson.

Anderson, like Hicks at Niceville, just completedh is 11th season as the head coach at Freeport, but its his Bulldogs’ knack to keep on taking W’s in the win column that has once again landed him as the All Sports Association/Daily News small school Coach of the Year.

When compared to other coaches that have just completed their third season with the same school, Anderson’s 28-9 record bests both Hicks (26-8) and Choctawhatchee’s Greg Thomas (23-10). Neither Fort Walton Beach’s Mike Owens or Chad Lashley, who recently retired as the head coach at Navarre and even more recently signed on at FWB as its new offensive coordinator, reached the 20-win mark during that time frame.

(A reminder here that there were first-year coaches at South Walton (Bill Wiles), Walton (Bobby Bennett), Baker (Matt Brunson) and Crestview (Kevin Pettis) and that Rocky Bayou Christian coach, Josh Childers, just completed his second year as a head coach.)

It’s his third-straight year to take the honor among the small schools and it’s a quite a tribute to the work he and his small staff have been able to do over the last few years.

Following its run historic run to the state semifinals in 2009, it looked like the Bulldogs would be in for a long fall in 2010. With quarterback Cole Weeks and running back Nathan Hendrickson having graduated, Freeport would be without the heart and soul of its high-powered offense.

In fact, the Bulldogs returned just three starters from a unit that had averaged 37 points per game in ’09.

Instead, Freeport captured a second-straight district crown and punched its ticket for the postseason.

Entering 2011, there was also a sense that the Bulldogs were in for a struggle. Despite returning 11 starters from the season before, Freeport had just one offensive lineman with varsity experience.

And yet, as September gave way to October and November, there was Anderson and Freeport, once again playing for a district title. While they fell short of capturing what would have been a school-record third-straight district championship, Freeport did advance to the postseason, reaching in the regional finals.

In an area that prides itself on its high school football – and for good reason – it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of the work Anderson has done at Freeport, where compared to other programs the size of staff of assistants is smaller and the pool of players to work with even moreso.

And yet, his team’s success rate is second to no one.

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