Berea high school, hired former Woodford County player Lee Atkins. He’s coached at a few Lexington area high schools, Midway College, and Kentucky State. 

I'm not positive what all went on at Berea....

So the school system was forced to cut their budget and Jon Thomas, who began as the Pirates football coach for the 2023 season, had his teaching job eliminated as part of the March 2025 budget cuts. The school district then ended up listing the head football coach job to their employment portal about a month later in late-April 2025.

Allen Sperry was announced as head coach of the Pirates football team during the second week of June 2025, but then looking on the KHSAA Scoreboard and on Arbiter, everything lists Jon Thomas still as head coach of the football team for the 2025 football season....so I'm honestly not sure who ended up coaching the Pirates last year, or when this job came open again.

Berea has named Lee Atkins new head coach. 

 

Didn't even know Berea was looking for a football coach. 

On 3/13/2026 at 3:17 PM, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

I'm not positive what all went on at Berea....

So the school system was forced to cut their budget and Jon Thomas, who began as the Pirates football coach for the 2023 season, had his teaching job eliminated as part of the March 2025 budget cuts. The school district then ended up listing the head football coach job to their employment portal about a month later in late-April 2025.

Allen Sperry was announced as head coach of the Pirates football team during the second week of June 2025, but then looking on the KHSAA Scoreboard and on Arbiter, everything lists Jon Thomas still as head coach of the football team for the 2025 football season....so I'm honestly not sure who ended up coaching the Pirates last year, or when this job came open again.

So…. A cliff notes summary of what I was told happened, as chronologically correct as possible without specific dates.

- Berea Independent Board in financial crisis. Begins making cuts. One of which was Coach Thomas. Status of football program highly in question.

- Thomas and others fight for job and team to no avail.

- Thomas, not having a teaching position and quite possibly a football team joins Lincoln County Staff.

- Berea attempting to move forward and finds a way to keep football team going now with no coach posts position. 

- Sperry takes job. Perhaps not fully understanding the challenges of Berea Ind Schools and trying to keep football afloat with for the Pirates. Within a few weeks moves on. I do not know the reasons but one must assume a better opportunity.

- Berea, now weeks away from season and more desperate than normal (with a teaching spot reinstated), makes plea to Thomas to return. Which he does and scrapes enough kids together to play most of the games on the schedule, fighting Harlan Ind tooth and nail and actually winning a game vs another small school in turmoil in Frankfort. Essentially saving the Berea Ind Football team from extinction once again.

- In returning to Berea he is now a tenured teacher. With his kids being younger at the conclusion of the season I was told he notifies admin that he’d be stepping away from coaching HS football for a bit. Perhaps not done totally, but he won’t be returning to the sidelines in immediate future.

- Job posted again in January, I believe.

Top 3 toughest job to have success in Kentucky. 

9 minutes ago, WOFOJP61 said:

I wonder what the rest of that story is?